The domestication of the cormorant in China and Japan

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v. /8 3

Field Museum op Natural History

Founded by Marshall Field, 1893

Publication 300
Anthropological Series Volume XVIII, No. 3

THE DOMESTICATION OF
THE CORMORANT IN CHINA AND JAPAN

BY

Berthold Laufer

CURATOR, DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

4 Plates in Photogravure

CHICAGO, U. S. A.
1931

Field Museum of Natural History

Founded by Marshall Field, 1893

Publication 300
Anthropological Series Volume XVIII, No. 3

THE DOMESTICATION OF
THE CORMORANT IN CHINA AND JAPAN

BY

Berthold Laufer

CURATOR, DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGT«" t LID ft Alii Ul I tit

OCT 8 - 1931

4 Plates in Photogravure

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

CHICAGO, U. S. A.
1931

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY FIELD MUSEUM PRESS

■3.65

V.

IS

CONTENTS

PAGE

List of Illustrations 203

Introduction 205

Chinese Terminology 208

Japanese Terminology 211

Historical Data 212

Geographical Distribution 227

Relation of Japanese to Chinese Cormorant Fishing 232

The Process of Domestication 236

Relation of Cormorant to Otter Fishing and Egret Taming .... 249

Iconography 251

Folk-lore of the Cormorant 255

Bibliography , 258

Index 260

201

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

XIII. White Porcelain Jar, Yung-cheng Period (1723-35). With

painting in enamel colors of a fisherman carrying two
cormorants on a bamboo pole. Cat. No. 180387.
Presented by American Friends of China, Chicago.

XIV. Cormorant Fisher. Finger-painting by Kao K'i-p'ei. Dated

1665.

XV-XVI. Cormorant Fishing on Bamboo Raft on Min River near
Fuchow, Fu-kien Province. Photographs taken by Mr.
Floyd Tangier Smith.

Vignette on page 205. Jade Carving of a Cormorant of the
Chou Period. Cat. No. 183296.

203

THE DOMESTICATION OF THE CORMORANT
IN CHINA AND JAPAN

INTRODUCTION

However much has been written on cormorant fishing
in China and Japan, beginning with Friar Odoric of
Pordenone, no one has ever made a serious study of
the subject, nor has any one ever consulted the Chinese
sources relating to it. The present study attempts to
fill this gap. For more than twenty-five years I have
been interested in the domestications of animals, espe-
cially in problems as to when, where, how, and why
domestications originated and developed. In the course of these
studies when I perused all general books on domestications and a
great many monographs on specific subjects, I was struck by the
fact that China and Japan are hardly mentioned in this literature
and, if so occasionally, data and conclusions are usually wrong. This
state of affairs should not be allowed to continue. The Chinese have
preserved a vast amount of interesting material, both in literary
records and works of art, bearing upon domesticated animals, which
if properly used and correctly interpreted, is bound to be of great
service to our science.

The problem of the domestication of the cormorant is the more
interesting, as it is a typically and characteristically Chinese domesti-
cation. Of all nations of the world, the Chinese is the only one
that has brought the cormorant into a complete and perfect state of
domestication, the birds propagating and being bred in captivity.
The fact is the more striking, as the cormorant is a cosmopolitan
diffused over nearly the entire world, so that other nations had
the same opportunity, but they did not seize it, nay, probably did
not even see it. In Japan, the cormorant is semi-domesticated at
present, but there is a possibility that there also it was truly domesti-
cated in former ages. Here the interesting problem arises as to the
relationship of Chinese and Japanese cormorant fishing, and it will
be seen that it is a complex question which if studied at close range
is widely different from what at the outset might be expected.

Dr. Gudger (I and II, consult Bibliography at end) has in recent
years published two interesting articles on cormorant fishing in China
and Japan. Being an ichthyologist and primarily interested in

205

206 Domestication of the Cormorant

methods of fishing, he has treated the subject from this point of
view and in a bibliographical manner. He passes in review, usually
quoting the text completely, the more important accounts of cor-
morant fishing extant in European literature from Odoric down to
recent times. Few of these accounts are of importance, or add
much to our knowledge of the subject; most of them give surface
observations of the fishing method, but say little or nothing about
the cormorant itself. Fortune and Fauvel are praiseworthy excep-
tions and have given us data of scientific value. The more recent,
the more stereotyped and duller the accounts of travelers become,
and it is difficult to judge what is due to their own observations and
what they copied from their predecessors. In the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries when China was merely a cabinet of curiosities
in the eyes of European readers, cormorant fishing was not allowed
to be wanting in any book on "China and the Chinese" and held
its place alongside with birds' nests, dog and cat flesh, crippled feet,
eunuchs, punishments and tortures.

Cormorant fishing was practised in Europe as a transient sport
toward the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth
century when it appeared almost simultaneously at both the English
and French courts.

James I took great delight in fishing with trained cormorants
(as he did also in watching his tame otters, which were trained for
a similar purpose), and John Wood was appointed "master of the
royal cormorants." In 1618 the king decided to build a house and
make ponds for his cormorants, ospreys, and otters at Westminster.
In 1609 fishing cormorants were demonstrated at Fontainebleau
before Louis XIII when he was dauphin. In the nineteenth century
cormorant fishing was revived in England by Captain F. H. Salvin
and in France by P. A. Pichot.

Harting (p. 427) holds that it is not unlikely that the sport was
first made known in Europe by the Hollanders, who besides being
enterprising navigators and traders in the East, have in all ages
been known as skilful falconers and great bird fanciers. Likewise
Pichot (p. 27) observes that cormorant fishing has come to us from
the Far East and that it appears to have been introduced into Europe
by the Hollanders in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Free-
man and Salvin (p. 328) report two instances of cormorants having
been brought to England from Holland, where they had been trained.

Yule (Cathay, new ed. by Cordier, II, p. 189) is mistaken in
saying that the English bird was formerly used for fishing both in

Introduction 207

England and in Holland quite in the Chinese way. This, a priori,
is utterly impossible, as the Chinese bird is thoroughly domesticated,
while his European cousin was never domesticated, but merely
trained for hunting fish.

In England the training of the cormorant was practised in adapta-
tion of that of the falcon. The birds were hoodwinked when carried
out of their enclosures to the fish-ponds so that they might not be
frightened. The hoods were taken off on arrival at the fishing
ground. When returning from fishing, the keepers called them to
their fist, and the birds were carried on the gloved hand like a falcon.
Nearly all the sportsmen of England and France interested in the
cormorant were originally falconers. Thus Pichot (p. 27) admits
that he learned the use of the cormorant from John Barr, a falconer
from Scotland. This falconry method of cormorant fishing was
never practised in China, and is peculiar to Europe. While it has
but little interest to the student of cormorant domestication, the
notes of European cormorant trainers like Harting, Salvin, and
Pichot on the behavior of the bird are apt to offer him valuable
suggestions.

Hunting with cormorants remained restricted to Holland,
England, and France. In Germany where cormorants were occa-
sionally hunted (J. Wimmer, Geschichte des deutschen Bodens,
1905, p. 363) no attempts at training them were made; neither in
Scandinavia. Olaus Magnus (Compendious History of the Goths,
Swedes, and Vandals, 1558, p. 199) briefly describes the cormorant
under the name "water-crow or eel-rook," but does not allude to
fishing with cormorants.

The cormorant of China does not constitute, as was formerly
assumed, a species of its own, being paraded under such hard names
as Hydrocorax sinensis Vieillot, or Pelecarus sinensis Latham, or
Phalacrocorax sinensis. According to Armand David (Les oiseaux
de la Chine, p. 532) and other ornithologists, the Chinese cormorant
is identical with that of Europe, and must simply be termed Phala-
crocorax carbo Schr. Swinhoe. The species is diffused as far north
as Kamchatka, and is very common along the entire coast of China
and on lakes and rivers in the interior of the country, as well as in
Mongolia. Moreover, this species is widely distributed along the
Atlantic coast of North and South America, in South Greenland,
Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New
Zealand.

CHINESE TERMINOLOGY

§$ i, M M lu-ts'e (written language), also pronounced lu-se,
Phalacrocorax carbo. The Er ya Hf 3£ gives the name of the cor-
morant as i or ts'e i M M, explained as lu ts'e and defined as a bird
"with a beak curved like a hook and subsisting on fish" It fii ft jm

Li Shi-chen ^ ££ %, in his Pen ts'ao kang mu ^ ^ ^ @ , cites
the Yun shu H # (cf. Watters, Essays on the Chinese Language,
p. 40) to the effect that both lu iM. and tse ££ mean "black," and that
these names are conferred upon the bird with reference to its deep-
black color (cf. I& tse, "black"). This explanation goes back to the
Ts'ang kie p'ien 3ir rI Jt, on which see Watters, Essays, p. 26, and
Pelliot, Le Chou King, Mem. concernant VAsie Orientate, II, 1916,
p. 137). According to the Pen ts'ao, the word i (in some editions
written S8) is the cry or call of the bird itself (J8 ^ 3£ $ S P£ -&),
and was hence adopted as the name for the bird.

S. Wells Williams (Chinese Repository, VII, 1839, p. 54) asserts
that the etymology of lu ts'e is "the black [bird] in the reeds." Evi-
dently he thought in this connection of }§. lu ("a kind of reed"), but
I am not aware of the fact that this derivation is given by any
Chinese author. The supposition given above seems quite plausible,
and the bird's name would simply mean "the black one."

In Lo-lo-p'o, one of the Lo-lo dialects, the cormorant, according
to Li^tard, is called vi-dzo-mo. The element dzo obviously cor-
responds to Chinese M, anciently dzi (Shanghai ze).

The Yi ts'ie king yin i — 4jJJ M It Ji (chap. 19, p. lb), compiled
by Hiian Ying j£ M toward the middle of the seventh century, defines
the cormorant after the Tse lin ^ ^ as "resembling the i &| (Giles
No. 5490, 'the fish-hawk'), but being black, an aquatic bird with
a beak curved like a hook and subsisting on fish, also called shwi ya
7K H ('water crow')." The latter term corresponds in meaning to
our cormorant, derived from Med. Lat. corvus marinus ("sea-crow."
Cf. German wasserrabe, seerabe; Dutch waterraaf).

The Mong Hang luW^^k, written by Wu Tse-mu ^g t
(chap. 18, p. 15) of the Sung in a.d. 1274, classes the cormorant
among the birds of Hang-chou under the name lu-ho flfe H, adding
that it is also called lu-ts'e.

A synonym for the cormorant given in the Pen ts'ao kang mu
and in several gazetteers of Fu-kien Province (e.g. Hing-hua fu chi

208

Chinese Terminology 209

J& Vt /fr *£, chap. 14, p. 9) is 3§ 7K # S7m sta" /ma, i.e. "water
flower of Shu" (Se-ch'wan). In the Ch'ang-t'ing hien chi S TV SI 1&
(chap. 30, p. 58) this name is explained as referring to the cormorant's
dung, which is used as medicine; it is ground to a powder with water,
and when administered to a man, has the effect on him that he will
give up wine.

^t M Is'e lao, in the Gazetteer of the District of Ch'ang-t'ing
(chap. 30, p. 58).

W ls& ts'ing lu, 51 ik kiao lu, in Palladius' Chinese-Russian
Dictionary (also Giles, No. 1316).

Designations of the bird in the colloquial language are:

M @ #1 wu t'ou wang, "black-headed net" (Ts'ing i lu, tenth
century, see below, p. 221).

7K ^ H shwi lao ya, "aquatic old duck" (Pen ts'ao yen i,
A.D. 1116).

tK 45 31 shwi lao ya, "aquatic old crow." Especially used in
Che-kiang.

tUp ya, "fish crow."

I-J & &tf kou yii lang, "fish-catching gentleman." Giles (Glossary
of Reference, p. 96) remarks that this name is borrowed from that
of the kingfisher.

t& & &■ mo yii kung, "Mr. Fish-diver."

M $c lu tsei, "cormorant, the robber" (in Tan-t'u hien chi fl*
it *$ in,*).

^ J& wu kwei, "black devil." This local Se-ch'wan term is
discussed in detail below (p. 214). While in the famous passage of
Tu Fu this term in all probability does not denote the cormorant,
it has been made to denote the bird from the Sung period onward.
This term reminds us of Milton's (Paradise Lost, IV, 196) comparison
of Satan with a cormorant ("and on the tree of life, ... sat like a
cormorant"). A. Newton (Enc. Brit., VII, p. 162) thinks that this
similitude is prompted by the bird's habit of sitting on an elevated
perch, often with extended wings, and in this attitude remaining
motionless for a considerable time as though hanging itself out to dry.

& 8$ yii ying, "fish," or rather, "fishing falcon" (in northern
China, particularly Shan-tung and Chi-li). This term properly
denotes the fishhawk or osprey, and at Peking and Tientsin is
especially applied to the common tern (0. F. von Mollendorff,
Vertebrata, pp. 77, 102).

It is an interesting fact that the cormorant appears in several
place-names. According to the Geography of the Ming (Ta Ming i

210 Domestication of the Cormorant

t'ung chi), as quoted in Pzen tse lei pten (chap. 210, p. 5), there is a
Cormorant Cliff (Lu-ts'e Yen J&, a hundred li west of King-ning
hien ^c ^ %& in the prefecture of Ch'u-chou M W Jfr, Che-kiang; there
is a spring there a drink from which would cure disease; subsequently
it was struck by a bolt of lightning and formed a pool; there were
fishermen who dared not cast their nets in it. A Cormorant Lake
(Lu-ts'e Hu M) is located forty li southwest of Hai-yen hien #1 m H
in the prefecture of Kia-hing H M, Che-kiang, and measures over
forty li in circumference. A Cormorant Embankment (Lu-ts'e Pei
$£) existed on the River Yuan M tK in the district Nei-hwang
ft M, which formerly belonged to Ta-ming fu ^C £ Mf, Chi-li
(now to Chang- te f u ^ ^ fft, Ho-nan), five li southwest from the
old city of Nei-hwang, measuring eighty li in circumference; it was
an advantageous place for fishing, protected by the natives. A
Cormorant Islet (Lu-ts'e Chou $H) is located in the district Shang-
kao Jb i§i in the prefecture Jui-chou 3n§ *W fft, Kiang-si, east of the
Lo-han Rock H M J5.

The earliest European illustration of a Chinese cormorant and
fishing-boat is contained in Johan Nieuhoff's Dutch Embassy (1669,
p. 134), and is titled "the bird Louwa." As this is Dutch spelling,
the diphthong ou is the equivalent of au. The author does not give
any European name. A. A. Fauvel (La Province chinoise du Chan-
toung, p. 293, Bruxelles, 1892) identifies this louwa with lao-wa
which he says is still current in China. I have never heard this word,
and have in vain looked for it in dictionaries. I imagine that it
should be written ^ H lao wa, wa being a name for the heron with
which the cormorant is sometimes confounded. E. H. Parker (Up
the Yangtse, p. 270, Shanghai, 1899) states that he heard the cor-
morant call lao wa in the upper Yangtse region. In Mesny's Chinese
Miscellany (IV, 1905, p. 228) the cormorant is called shwi-lao-wa.

In Yen-chou, Che-kiang, according to an observation of E. H.
Parker (J. China Br. R. A. S., XIX, 1885, p. 40), the heron (lu-se
It M) is called the cormorant, and the cormorant (gang ngo / f£f $!)
the heron. I note from R. S. Maclay's Dictionary in the Foochow
Dialect (p. 505, Foochow, 1870) that in Fu-chou colloquial the cor-
morant is lo li or lo si, lo being M lu ("heron")-

JAPANESE TERMINOLOGY

u (a native Japanese word) It, Phalacrocorax carbo. This
character, read t'i in Chinese, refers in China to the pelican. It is
not exactly clear why this character was adopted in Japan for the
designation of the cormorant, but it is intelligible since pelican and
cormorant are closely allied birds, both belonging to the Palmipedes.
R. Hemeling, in his English-Chinese Dictionary (1916), assigns to
t'i the meaning "cormorant." I do not know whether or in how far
this is correct.

shimatsu $h W (Manyoshu), £& M, P. capillatus.

umi-u, P. capillatus.

hime-u #6 $$, P. pelagicus.

chishima-u f" IS $$, P. bicristatus.

kawatsu, P. carbo hanedae Kuroda, a smaller species caught
mainly on the coast of Tokyo Bay and used for fishing in the streams
near Tokyo.

u-bune $1 $&, a boat used in fishing with cormorants.

u-kai H M, cormorant fisher.

u-tsukai $1 jS fnj, do.

u-nawa $1 flk, a line or straw rope used in cormorant fishing.

eboshi ,% tl iF", head-dress of the cormorant-trainer.

u-jo, chief cormorant-trainer.

211

HISTORICAL DATA

The earliest mention of the use of trained cormorants for fishing
occurs in the Chinese Annals of the Sui Dynasty (A.D. 590-617),
but with reference to Japan.

In the Sui shu (chap. 81, p. 7) it is on record that "in Japan they
suspend small rings from the necks of cormorants, and have them
dive into the water to catch fish, and that they can catch over a
hundred a day" (« H & 4> £ & * M « * A * ft ft Jft

wte §f).

This brief information presumably given by the Japanese envoy
who visited the Chinese court in A.D. 607 (cf. 0. Nachod, Geschichte
von Japan, I, pp. 207, 270) conveys the impression that this method
of fishing was a novel affair to the Chinese chronicler. It is curious
that neither at the time of the Sui nor under the T'ang do we have
a single account relating to this matter, so far as China is concerned.
The only historical text cited in the cyclopaedia T'ai p'ing yii Ian
^¥^1 (chap. 925, pp. 8b-9a), published by Li Fang 3= W in
A.D. 983, is the above passage of the Sui shu, while three other texts
quoted there have merely reference to superstitions or medical
prescriptions in reference to the bird, but not a word is said about
its being trained in China. The same holds good for the T'u shu tsi
ch'eng, where the historical notices of the bird #£ ^ open with the
text of the Sui Annals, while the Ts'ing i lu ?pf H it of the tenth
century is given as the first record of trained cormorants in China.

The information given in the Sui shu is amply confirmed by
Japanese sources. The cormorant (u H) was utilized for fishing in
ancient Japan. In the Kojiki l£f ^ IS, completed in A.D. 712, the
Emperor Jimmu # 5£ ^ M: addresses in a poem "the keepers of
cormorants, the birds of the island" (translation of B. H. Chamberlain,
p. 144). The same poem, which in Chamberlain's opinion probably
dates from a far earlier age, is found in the Nihongi H ^ IS of
A.D. 720 (translation of W. G. Aston, I, p. 126). In the same work
we meet the son of Nihe-motsu f*l ^L $8, who was the first ancestor
of the cormorant-keepers (u-kahi or u-kai) of Ata (ibid., p. 119)
W >fc ^t ill pP fo M. Again, an allusion to cormorants "diving into
the water to catch fish" is made in the same chronicle under the
year a.d. 459 (ibid., p. 341).

Cormorants must have been abundant and popular in ancient
Japan, and also played a role in mythology (K. Florenz, Quellen

212

Historical Data 213

der Shinto Religion, p. 68). The father of the Emperor Jimmu
bore the name Ugayafuki-aezu-no-Mikoto flft M ^ M ^ & #
("Cormorant-rush-thatch unfinished." — Aston, Nihongi, I, pp. 95,
98). The lying-in hut (ubuya J& M) was thatched with cormorant
feathers. In the record of a census made in a.d. 702 appears the
name U-kai-be ("clan of cormorant-keepers") no Mezurame H ^ p5
@ £fl f& H of the province of Mino. According to the Record of
the Customs of the Province of Mino H i& ffl $f H JH i l£, there
were during the period Engi 5S H (a.d. 901-922) seven houses of
cormorant fishermen on the Nagara River ik $L Jl| in Mino; these
prepared special dried ayu hk (sweet-fish) for the use of the emperor
and annually presented the fishes to the imperial household. The
ayu is a salmonid about a foot in length and found only in the clear
upland and mountain streams of central Japan. The Manyoshu
M MM (chap. 19) contains a poem #f M «&£ by Otomo no Yakamochi,
written in the province of Etchu.

Among the Hundred Laws of Ieyasu there is one (No. 24) in
which it is said, "Formerly there were people who asserted that the
hunt with cormorants and falcons should be abolished, and yet this
is not an idle pleasure or a useless destruction of life. It is an old
custom with the princes of China and Japan that they offer their
hunting spoils to the emperor," etc. (T. Kempermann, Mitteilungen
der deutschen Ges. Ostasiens, I, p. II).

Two Japanese scholars, Ikenoya (1917) and Kuroda (1926), have
written treatises on the history of cormorant fishing in Japan, and
excerpts from their data are given in E. W. Gudger's article "Fishing
with the Cormorant in Japan" (see Bibliography at end).

Gudger (II p. 9) states, "So far as I have searched, unlike
similar works for China, none of the early European voyagers to
Japan, not even Kaempfer, figures or even refers to cormorant
fishing in Japan." I have found, however, the following interesting
note in the Diary of Richard Cocks (ed. of Hakluyt Society, I,
p. 285) referring to the year 1617:

"Soyemon Dono made a fishing over against English howse with
cormorants made fast to long cordes behind their winges, and bridles
from thence before their neckes to keepe the fish from entring their
bodies, so that when they took it they could take yt out of their
throates again." This is exactly the method still followed in Japan
at the present time.

While there is good evidence for cormorant fishing in ancient
Japan extending from the fifth and sixth to the eighth century, con-

214 Domestication of the Cormorant

temporaneous evidence for China is entirely lacking. To be sure,
ancient references to the cormorant in dictionaries, poetry, and the
Pen ts'ao literature are plentiful (see below, pp. 221 and 224), but
these passages are reticent as to the training of the bird. The first
and earliest document that contains a notice of trained cormorants
used by man is the Ts'ing i lu, a work of the tenth century (below,
p. 221). It is supposed that a passage in a poem of Tu Fu alludes
to domesticated cormorants; unfortunately, however, the bird does
not appear there under its real name, but the phrase "black devil"
is interpreted as such. This passage has been the subject of a lively
controversy among Chinese authors, and I shall briefly review their
opinions. At the same time we have occasion to touch upon several
texts of the Sung period which refer to cormorant fishing.

In a poem of Tu Fu tt ll (a.d. 712-770) the following verse
occurs:

He ||c 3c >% Mt

This means literally:

"All families (or: in the houses they) raise the black devil
And at every meal feed on the yellow fish."

S. Wells Williams (Chinese Repository, VII, p. 542) translates,
"Every family trains the black devil, which, often diving, seizes the
yellow fish." The text, however, contains nothing about "diving"
or "seizing." If wu kwei really be the cormorant, it may be admitted
that the cormorant may occasionally feed on yellow fish; but if wu
kwei, as interpreted by other scholars, is something quite different,
this conception of the passage is absurd. It is quite clear that kia
kia is the subject of the second clause and that the families eat the
yellow fish. The latter is explained in the commentary to the Er ya
as the name given east of the river VL M (i.e. in the lower Yangtse
region) to the sturgeon, chan f&L, which is from twenty to thirty feet
long (Pien tse lei pien, chap. 135, p. 17b, where also the above passage
from Tu Fu is quoted, the title of the poem being given as lUi f£ W
W* ft W. Cf. also Su po wu chi H W ^ 1&, chap. 2, p. 6, ed. of Pai
hai). It is obvious that a cormorant can not catch a fish of the
dimensions and weight of a sturgeon. The weight of a full-grown
bird is about seven pounds, and a one-and-a-half pound fish is about
the maximum weight a bird can carry. Long after I wrote this, I
found in the Tung ya *§ S (chap. 45, p. 21b) that Ma Yung-k'ing
^ TJt M, who lived in the first part of the twelfth century, has made
the same criticism ("Can a cormorant catch a yellow fish?" And
Fang I-chi ^ Jji Hf, author of the Tung ya, comments, "Why is it

Historical Data 215

necessary that he catches yellow fish? Why should it not be a yellow-
cheeked fish f$ £1 & hwang kia yii [Mollendorff, Vertebrata,
p. 107]?") . The Pien tse lei pien gives a quotation from another poem
of Tu Fu, entitled "The Yellow Fish" (cf. also Neng kai chai man lu,
chap. 6, p. 23) and cites the Yu yang tsa tsu as saying that in Shu
(Se-ch'wan), whenever a yellow fish is killed, it will invariably rain.

The phrase "black devil" (wu kwei) has aroused much comment
from authors of the Sung period; and, it will be seen, is credited with
several different meanings. The general situation is well summed
up by Wang Mou.

Wang Mou 3E 8£, in his Ye ko ts'ung shu 5? ^ M IF (chap. 26,
pp. 5b-6, ed. of Pai hai), the preface of which is dated a.d. 1202,
has the following discourse on the subject under the heading Wu kwei
("Black Devil"):

"As to the line of old Tu 'in the houses they raise the black devil,'
there are several explanations. The Lan chen tse #1 ^ "f [by Ma
Yung-k'ing if iK J$J : Wylie, Notes, p. 164] interprets wu kwei as
'pig.' Ts'ai Kwan-fu H % ^ [author of Ts'ai shi shi hwa H ft If W,
biography in Sung shi, chap. 356] explains it as 'the seven gods of
the dark wilderness' ,% Sf Ac #. The Leng chai ye hwa ?p $F ^ §8
[by Hui Hung M $£, end of eleventh century: Wylie, Notes, p. 164]
regards it as 'the devils of the Black Man,' Wu Man kwei ,% S$ J&.
Shen Ts'un-chung [i.e. Shen Kwa i!t t£, a.d. 1029-93], in his Mong
k'i pi Van 1£ ^ K£ l&, the Siang su tsa ki ffl& $ $t HE,, the Yii yin
ts'ung hwa $& H H W [by Hu Tse #J \f of the Sung], the Lu, nung
shi $k H f»i|j, and the P'i ya *$ %fe interpret it as the cormorant
{lu-ts'e). These four explanations differ widely. However, solely
the explanation of the Leng chai is correct. Referring to the chapter
'Record of the Southern Man' in the T'ang Annals M ♦ $J §£ ft,
we read that 'they commonly esteem shamans and devils and in
the great tribes they have Great Devil Chiefs jc J& i, while in the
families they establish a Small Devil Chief /J> $L ± ; the White Man
(Pai Man) form a single clan, the Black Man (Wu Man) five clans;
the latter are so called, because the dresses of their women are made
of black silk, while those of the White Man are made of white silk.'
Further, in examining the comment of the Leng chai, Liu Yii-si
fij & ^ (a.d. 772-842), in his poem Nan-chung l£ +, says, 'They
sacrifice in excess to numerous dark devils W A, for white-haired
men are scarce among the inhabitants.' There is another saying
with reference to the so-called dark devils: The cause of the prestige
of the Man tribes of the rivers and gorges of Kwang-nan rests on
the fact that they have such names as dark devils and black devils.

216 Domestication of the Cormorant

"In the lines of Tu the 'yellow fish' is antithetical to the 'black
devil/ from which it follows that the devils of the Black Man are
meant. Let us further examine a poem of Yuan Wei-chi % Wi £.
[i.e. Yuan Chen % SI, A.D. 779-831], who says, 'In their rustic taste
they prize frogs or clams; in their domestic worship, all serve the
crow or raven' ($G Bfc ± ^r !& |£ P 28 ^ Jb ) . Yuan Chen further says,
'In case of disease they carry a raven around in a procession, praising
it as a demon; the sorcerers predict (the outcome of the disease)
by means of a tile which with them takes the place of a tortoise
(?S I i i I ^ ^ % ft !£).' According to the commentary,
the people of the south, when infected by a disease, carry a black
devil around in a procession. These explanations are similar to, but
not identical with that given above. As regards the Record of the
Southern Man (in the T'ang Annals), the word wu M has the
meaning 'black,' but in the poem of Yuan Chen, as the word ko fcn
is antithetical to wu &, it must have the meaning 'raven'."

This discourse is instructive in many respects. We note above
all what difficulties Sung authors had in correctly understanding
and interpreting a passage in a T'ang poem and how widely divergent
their opinions were. I do not see that we poor epigones can do much
better. There is no doubt that wu kwei, apparently restricted to
Se-ch'wan, had several different meanings during the Sung period.
I shall give additional information from the sources cited by Wang
Mou and likewise from others.

Wu kwei, as Ma Yung-k'ing informs us, was applied to pigs.
This is confirmed by the Man sou shi hwa tfl % W W (cited in Pien
tse lei pien, chap. 207, p. 3b) : "The people of Se-ch'wan are fond of
pork, and all families there are engaged in the rearing of swine.
Whenever they call their pigs, they emit the sound wu kwei M %L.
Hence they call a pig wu kwei ('black devil')."

Hia-hou Tsie JE & fp (in the T'ung ya, chap. 45, p. 21b, he is
called JC ;fc ^), a scholar living in the gorges of Se-ch'wan ift^ 4 1 dt A,
is quoted as saying, "The black devil is a pig. Many families in-
habiting the gorges serve the devils and raise a particular pig, not,
however, to be sacrificed to the devils, as this would be useless,
but they put this pig among the common herd, and from time to
time call the devils and the pig, keeping them apart, and this is the
proper thing to do" (Ning-hua hien chi, ^ It H ^, chap. 2, p. 128).
In the T'ung ya, however, the same scholar is quoted as saying,
"The black devil is a pig. The families raise a particular pig for the
purpose of sacrificing it to the devils." If this be correct, the designa-
tion wu kwei for the sacrificial pig may have arisen from the fact

Historical Data 217

that it was intended as a sacrifice to the wu kwei. Yang Shen $1 tK
(1488-1559) writes that the people in the gorges raise young chicks
which, provided with copper or tin rings, are offered to the spirits,
and these are called wu kwei (T'ung ya, chap. 45, p. 21b).

Wu kwei was also applied to the raven. Corvus torquatus is still
designated "devil bird" fe By (Mollendorff, Vertebrata, pp. 88, 89).

Lo Yuan H JPH, author of the Er ya i (twelfth century), writes,
"In the opinion of some people, the inhabitants of the defiles of Se-
en 'wan term the cormorant wu kwei, but these folks, on the other
hand, serve the raven and call it devil; hence wu kwei is not the
cormorant" (& 2 tt A fH & Jil Jfc B ft A 7b m Mi ® % # *
fyj -&). Regarding another explanation as "raven" see below, p. 219.

On the other hand, it cannot be doubted that wu kwei began under
the Sung to denote the cormorant, and Wang Mou cites four author-
ities to this effect. This, of course, does not mean that the cormorant
can be interpreted into the passage of Tu Fu. Wang Mou, however,
errs in listing Shen Kwa among the pro-cormorantists; on the con-
trary, as will be seen presently, Shen Kwa, is averse to this explana-
tion. Wang Mou's misunderstanding is copied from the Leng chai
ye hwa (chap. 4, p. 7b, ed. of Pai hai), which he quotes, and this error
was probably caused by the fact that Shen Kwa cites the K'wei
chou t'u king which seems to be the first Sung work to explain wu
kwei as cormorant and the text of which is given alike in the P'i ya
and the Mong k'i pi t'an written between a.d. 1086 and 1093.

Shen Kwa, in his Mong k'i pi t'an (chap. 16, p. 1, ed. of Pai hai)
writes as follows: "The scholar Liu K'o dt A. £>J & extensively
inspected strange writings. One day he lighted on a poem of Tu Fu
[as quoted above] . The general explanation of this passage now gi ven
is that all say that in the gorges of K'wei-chou there are up to the
present time 'devil families' (kwei hu $L J*) f and these are simply
savages 75 M A & ; their chieftain is called a devil's chief (kwei chu
% i). However, I have never heard of a phrase like wu kwei
ife ?fc $l\ ft M %L £. 13fc. Moreover, as regards the devil families, these
are the savages who are so called, but not something raised by man
(as the cormorant is).

"The K'wei-chou t'u king H W M H5 says that 'the inhabitants
of the gorges of Se-ch'wan call the cormorant "black devil" (wu kwei)
and that the people of Shu £S A dwelling along the water-courses
raise this bird and fasten a cord to its neck whenever they send it
into the water to dive for fish; when the cormorant has caught a
fish, they pull him out of the water by means of this cord.' In this
manner it is still practised up to this time, and I can testify to the

218 Domestication of the Cormorant

truth of it, for I was in Se-ch'wan myself and saw people there raise
cormorants (lu-ts'e) and employ them for the purpose of catching
fish. Only I do not know that the people of Se-ch'wan call the
cormorant black devil «M ^ £n II ± M k %)."

Here we have good and trustworthy testimony for domesticated
cormorants in Se-ch'wan during the eleventh century. As to the
term wu kwei, one man's word is as good as another's. Shen Kwa
asserts merely that he did not hear the term used in Se-ch'wan for
the cormorant, while others affirm they did. There is no reason
to doubt that in the eleventh century wu kwei was a popular designa-
tion of the cormorant locally in certain parts of Se-ch'wan. We
have no evidence, however, that this term was so used three centuries
earlier during the lifetime of Tu Fu. No text of the T'ang period
informs us that wu kwei then had the significance "cormorant."
This is not a T'ang tradition, but a Sung tradition, and what hap-
pened was that Sung scholars who heard of that local usage inter-
preted this meaning back into the line of Tu Fu.

Fan Chen ?a tft, author of the Tung chai ki shi M 3§F 16 ^, who
lived in the latter part of the eleventh century, deserves special
consideration as he was a native of Hwa-yang # % in Se-ch'wan
and must have been well informed on the affairs of his country.
This work is reprinted in the Shou shan ko ts'ung shu, vol. 84, where
his notice of cormorants is not given; it is cited, however, alike in the
Tsing k'ang siang su tsa ki to be noted presently and in the Se-ch'wan
t'ung chi JZ9 JI| ?i. 1& (chap. 74, p. 21), as follows:

"The fishermen of Shu raise cormorants to the number of ten
and daily catch fish to the weight of ten catties. They tie a cord
around the neck of the bird, so that a small fish may just pass through
his throat, while he cannot swallow a big fish. From time to time
the fishermen take the birds out of the water and let them dive into
the water again. The birds are very tame, and will attend to every-
thing as if they had a human heart. Whether they have caught a
fish or not, they return to the boat, and those familiar with the
flock will feed them and then cause them to return to their work.
This method is comparable to falconry, but saves the trouble of
riding on horseback and running. The profit obtained from this
business is very large."

The Siang su tsa ki cited by Wang Mou is called with its complete
title Tsing k'ang siang su tsa ki 3ff J|§ #B ^ $i f£. This work, as
implied by the title, was written in the Tsing-k'ang period (a.d.
1126-27), and is from the hand of Hwang Ch'ao-ying W $8 ^ of the
Sung (cf. Wylie, Notes, p. 159: early twelfth century). It is reprinted

Historical Data 219

in the Shou shan ko ts'ung shu, vol. 69, and the text in question,
entitled Wu kwei, is in chap. 5, pp. 2b-3a (the T'ang Sung ts'ung shu
contains only a greatly abridged form of this work of only thirteen
pages, which does not contain this text). The author refers to the
Mong k'i pi fan, saying that solely Liu K'o 29 ^ has explained the
meaning of wu kwei correctly; then he cites the Tung chai ki shi,
translated above, noting that its author, Fan, does not know either
that the cormorant should be intended by the "black devil" of Tu Fu.
Finally he cites the cormorant account of the Sui shu; and, I believe,
he is the only Sung author who has done so and seen the identity of
cormorant fishing in Japan and China. Judging from this text,
Wang Mou is wrong in classifying Hwang Ch'ao-ying among writers
who interpret Tu Fu's wu kwei as the cormorant; but in the Se-
ch'wan t'ung chi P3 JM ifi iS (chap. 74, p. 21) Hwang is quoted thus:
"The people in the gorges (of Se-ch'wan) call the cormorant 'black
devil' and raise it for the purpose of catching fish, making cormorant-
fishing their business." If Hwang Ch'ao-ying should really have
made this statement, which is not contained in the edition of the
Shou shan ko ts'ung shu, and which contradicts the text of the latter,
Wang Mou would be right.

Exactly the same information as in the Se-ch'wan t'ung chi is
given in the K'wei-choufu chi H j\\ M ]&, 1891, chap. 14, p. 4.

Wu Tseng ^ H", author of the Neng kai chai man lu IE t& 3§f $1 H
(chap. 6, p. 21b; middle of twelfth century), cites the passage from
Yuan Chen's poem with the commentary in the same manner as
Wang Mou and decides that the wu kwei of Tu Fu has the same
meaning. He also attributes to Shen Kwa the notion that the
wu kwei of Tu Fu is the cormorant, adding, "I do not know on what
evidence this is based" (^ ^D X fpT 9f $1 &).

The opinion expressed in the Leng chai ye hwa (chap. 4, p. 7, ed.
of Pai hai) is shared by Kwo T'wan M%-\n his K'wei kit chi H£ $ ]&
(Wylie, Notes, p. 197; after T'u shu tsi ch'eng; I have not been able
to trace this passage in the edition of Pai hai), who denies that in
Tu Fu's verse the term wu kwei refers to the cormorant, but who
asserts that it alludes to the Black Man devils M ff£ $L and that
this is the only correct explanation. The Leng chai ye hwa says that
"the people along the roads in the gorges of Se-ch'wan sacrifice to
the devils of the Black Man." Fang I-chi adds this comment: "On the
roads of Pa-tung EL M there are ravens. People traveling by boat
must throw away their meat and give it to the ravens as provision;
otherwise they will have no luck. Should these ravens be the black
devils?"

220 Domestication of the Cormorant

In the Wen kien lu K )£ ft by Shao Po-wen BM6 i& of the Sung
dynasty it is said (Pien tse lei pien, chap. 207, p. 3b), "On the eleventh
day of the first month of every year the people in the gorges of
K'wei H $£ £. A offer sacrificial animals and wine in the fields on
behalf of Ts'ao Ts'ao J§ W ; on this occasion there is a drill of soldiers
with a great deal of noise, and this they call 'raising the black devil' "
# J§ J&. The Wen kien lu is reprinted in the Tsin tai pi shu and
Hio tsin t'ao yilan to which I have not access at present.

It is certain that the term wu kwei hails from Se-ch'wan.

It cannot be said that the Sung writers who plead for wu kwei
as the cormorant have made out a strong case in their favor. They
are all obsessed with the sole passage of Tu Fu, and do not fall back
on any other text. Above all, they fail to explain why wu kwei, a
local Se-ch'wan colloquial term, was transferred to the cormorant.
From their explanations it is perfectly clear why pig and raven came
to be called "black devil." Here the relation of these creatures to
devils or spirits is conspicuous; not so, however, in the case of the
cormorant who lacks any association with the supernatural world.
Why this useful helpmate of man who contributes so much to human
economy should be dubbed a black devil is simply unintelligible.

Palladius (Chinese-Russian Dictionary, I, p. 127) explains wu
kwei, "raven, as a demon. In the south of China, in case of any
disease, the female shamans make an offering and divine by means of
the tortoise. Swine-mother. Cormorant." Giles, in his Dictionary,
gives merely the meaning "cormorant."

I shall not decide how the above verse of Tu Fu is to be inter-
preted. I have merely reproduced the various opinions of Chinese
authors from which it follows that the definition of wu kwei as
"cormorant" in Tu Fu's verse is at least exceedingly doubtful.
This study is not a contribution to Chinese poetry, but one to the
domestication of the cormorant. As I have studied the latter subject
for many years, I feel obliged to say that it seems to me most im-
probable that the cormorant can be understood in the passage of
Tu Fu; for to say that "the families raise the cormorant" would imply
that the domestication of the bird was quite general (at least in one
part of China or the other) during the eighth century. Now, if this
had been the case, we should assuredly expect to find other con-
temporaneous texts corroborating this matter, but no such text of the
T'ang period, as far as I know, has as yet come to the fore. It seems
fairly clear that the interpretation of wu kwei as "cormorant" in
Tu Fu's verse arose only in the Sung period when the subject of
cormorant fishing became known to scholars, and personally I am

Historical Data 221

convinced that the cormorant is not visualized by Tu Fu. But even
if this were the case, it would simply be an isolated scrap of evidence
to which no great historical significance can be attached. In my
opinion the line of Tu Fu means, "The families when they perform
the ceremony known as 'caring for the black devil,' feed (on this
festive occasion) on sturgeon." To be sure, Tu Fu, like Li Po,
Wang Wei, and other poets of the T'ang period, was familiar with the
cormorant; he mentions it in a verse that begins P*j 9% £§ M A ^ 2|S,
but here the bird appears under its regular name lu-ts'e, and so it is
designated by other writers, e.g. Yuan Chen (E. von Zach, Ein
Brief wechsel in Versen, pp. 216, 220). The salient point is that the
cormorant is mentioned and discussed by Sui and T'ang authors,
but there is dead silence on their part as to the domestication
of the bird.

The J wu chi M fyj $ of Yang Fu %jk *£, which is possibly a
work of the Sui dynasty, for instance, says that the cormorant dives
in deep water in order to catch fish on which it subsists; it is a water-
bird and nests in high trees. A superstition dealt with below under
the heading "folk-lore" is added to the text, but nothing is said about
the employment of the bird in the service of man.

In so-called classical literature the cormorant appears not to be
mentioned. It is not referred to in the K'in king $f @ ascribed to
Chang Hua 311 # (third century A.D.), nor in the Mao shi ts'ao mu
niao shou ch'ung yu su ^ W ^ ^ th S£ ^ & fife of Lu Ki P£ |$
(a.d. 260-303).

The earliest text that mentions the cormorant as trained for
fishing is contained in the Ts'ing ilufn^^k (chap. _b, pp. 57b-58),
written by T'ao Ku 1^1 i£, who lived in the tenth century
(A.D. 902-970, according to Giles, Biogr. Diet., No. 1898):

"For the purpose of catching fish they use cormorants (lu-ts'e)
which are quick and alert to a high degree. In the district of Tang-
t'u H ^ there are ponds covered with aquatic plants and rocky hills,
where people live scattered on farms and in cottages and raise
cormorants in their houses If J5 I ^ ^. They make a small boat
fast on the bank and daily send a man — T to catch fish for the
supply of the families. A municipal official (yi yu IL §t), when he
passed this place, noticed it and said to the hill-people, 'The small
boat is the arena for receiving the meat sb A" £P #J Ut ^; the cor-
morant is the small official (siao yii /h M).' It is said also that the
fishermen of the rivers and lakes use the cormorant and call it
'the small official.' Other fishermen bestow on the cormorant the
epithet 'black-headed net' (wu t'ou wang fik Bt i$l)."

222 Domestication of the Cormorant

Tang-t'u forms the prefectural city of T'ai-p'ing ^c 3* fft, An-hui
Province, on the lower Yangtse. How little dependence can be
placed on the T'u shu tsi ch'eng is shown by the fact that this impor-
tant document is quoted therein in the following abbreviated form:
"For the purpose of catching fish they use cormorants which are
quick and alert to a high degree. The people therefore speak of the
small boat as the arena for receiving the meat and of the cormorant
as the small official." The locality and all the significant points of
the story are coldly deleted. I allow this to stand as I wrote it,
but afterwards when I consulted the edition of the Ts'ing i lu in the
T'ang Sung ts'ung shu (chap. 2, p. 13b), I found there to my surprise
the text as given in the T'u shu. There must be, accordingly, different
manuscripts of the Ts'ing i lu.

The document in question is characteristic of the attitude of
Chinese scholarship. Here we are confronted with the first mention
of the domesticated cormorant on Chinese soil and might justly
expect an expression of surprise or astonishment at so unusual an
achievement, or an inquiry on the author's part into the origin of
this extraordinary practice. It is simply taken for granted, however,
without further comment. What the author is interested in is not
the novel fact, but a literary bon mot for which his story serves as
an explanation. In fact, his notice is entitled $fo ))# i% (Wj in the
edition before me, printed in 1875 by W. K M ffl #, is a misprint)
/h $t, and it is this new, learned term that he is intent on introducing
to his scholarly readers. This term has not proved a success, for it
has not been adopted, so far as I know, by any subsequent author.
The case is analogous to that of the Sung writers who got excited
over the term wu kwei. The story itself is perfectly clear in demon-
strating that during the tenth century the cormorant was domesti-
cated and reared for catching fish in certain places of Tang-t'u,
apparently out of the way and not easily accessible to officials, who
noted merely the fait accompli without bothering about questions
of origin and development. Simple folks, fishermen by avocation,
had accomplished what an official would never have thought of;
the process of taming and training the bird, ultimately resulting in
its domestication, had remained unnoticed by the learned, and no
record of it is preserved.

This philological attitude is characteristic of the Chinese scholarly
mind. Words, phrases, characters, inscriptions, etc., have always
found attention and were made the subject of profound studies,
while the subject-matter itself was neglected. It is hardly con-
ceivable that a matter so characteristically Chinese as the domesti-

Historical Data 223

cation of the cormorant, which is an interesting scientific problem
to us, has left Chinese scholars completely indifferent. Ch'en Hao-tse
Bfc M iP, in his Hwa king ~%L H, published in 1688, devotes chap-
ter VI of his work to animals kept by man. Of birds he deals, for
example, with crane, peacock, egret, parrot, falcon, eagle, pheasant,
pigeon, etc., but the cormorant is not even mentioned. The Ts'e
yuan ff M, now revered and quoted by European sinologists as a
sort of Bible, exhibits the same defect, and in giving a superficial
definition of the cormorant does not even mention the fact of its
domestication or its employment in the human household; the term
wu kwei is given as a synonym of the cormorant, but not even the
passage of Tu Fu is cited, nor is there any reference to the con-
troversy which it has aroused!

In one respect T'ao Ku's story does not enlighten us. He does
not describe the method of fishing itself, a subject which did not
greatly interest him; and while he says that cormorants were reared
in the habitations of fishermen in the Tang-t'u District, which
indicates that the birds to some extent must have been domesticated
in that locality at that time (about the middle of the tenth century),
we are unable to judge to what degree the domestication of the birds
had then progressed. Was it still in the primary stage? Or had it
far advanced? The question is important, for we are anxious to
know to what time the beginnings of this domestication go back.
If it was in a perfect state in T'ao Ku's days, we have to concede
that a considerable span of time must have elapsed before this state
was reached; or, if it then was in its initial stages (and this is more
probable), this concession becomes superfluous. T'ao Ku's succinct
note does not give us a direct clue to the solution of this problem.
While the domestication of the cormorant requires a great deal of
patience and endurance, it is not excessively difficult, and in my
estimation it is not necessary to date the preliminary steps leading
to the domestication in China farther back than about the beginning
of the tenth century. More will be said about this point in the
chapter on the Process of Domestication.

The texts of the K'wei chou t'u king, Mong k'i pi t'an, and Tung
chai ki ski have been quoted above. These refer alike to the prov-
ince of Se-ch'wan, which has played an important role in the domes-
tication of the cormorant, and agree in emphasizing the cord tied to
the bird's neck — a sure sign of its domestication. There can be no
doubt that during the Sung period it reached the state of perfection.

In the EryaiffiZfeM, written by Lo Yuan H ^ in the twelfth
century, it is stated, "At present there are in Shu (Se-ch'wan) many

224 Domestication of the Cormorant

people inhabiting the water-courses who keep and raise cormorants
by tying a cord around their necks. In this manner small fishes
may pass the bird's throat, while it is unable to gulp down large
fishes. From time to time the fishermen call the birds and relieve
them of their fishes; then they are sent out again. They are so
docile and familiar with man that signs are sufficient for them to
grasp their masters' intentions. When they finally return to the
boat, whether with fishes or without, they are detained and fed,
and then are allowed to return home. This method is comparable
to hunting with kites and sparrow-hawks without the trouble of
hustling around. The profit from this business is rather large, for
the fishermen raise several tens of birds and daily obtain several
tens of catties of fish. The fishes coming out of the birds' throats
have a strong odor, being affected by the unpleasant saliva of the
birds [the cormorant pockets its prey in its oesophagus]. After they
have come out of the water, the fishes are spread out on rocks and
dried in the sun."

The attitude of the T'ang and Sung Pen ts'ao literature toward
the cormorant, as far as its domestication is concerned, is negative.
The Sin siu pen ts'ao M $£ & ^ (chap. 15, p. 25b of the facsimile
edition published in Japan) does not give a definition or description
of the bird; in fact, the article in question is not entitled "The
Cormorant," but "The Cormorant's Ordure" H M fa with the
synonym Shu shwi hwa; the ordure, it is said, removes black spots
and pimples from the face; and this is followed by a quotation from
T'ao Hung-king, who gives a bit of folk-lore concerning the propaga-
tion of the bird (below, p. 255). Ch'en Ts'ang-k'i B It 2£> author
of the Pen ts'ao shi i ^ ^ ^a Ja, does not go beyond this; and the
Pen ts'ao yen i strings its harp on the same note (text given below,
p. 255). T'ang Shen-wei Mf ^ Wi, in his Cheng lei pen ts'ao Wt M ♦ ^
of a.d. 1108 (chap. 19, p. 19b), is not either interested in the cormorant
itself, although he pictures it in a naively crude drawing. He is
contented to reiterate the data of the Sin siu pen ts'ao. The T'ang
and Sung herbalists, accordingly, restricted themselves to pharma-
cological and folkloristic notes without manifesting any real interest
in the bird itself. The fact that the T'ang authors of Pen ts'aos are
silent as to the bird's employment for fishing is, of course, incon-
clusive; the Sung Pentsaoists do not mention it either, although at
their time this was an accomplished fact.

Li Shi-chen ^ B# f£, in his Pen ts'ao kang mu ^ ^ ffl @ , is
the first herbalist who discusses the cormorant with some degree of
intelligence:

Historical Data 225

"Cormorants occur everywhere in districts where water is found.
The bird resembles the fish-hawk (yi f&), but is smaller than the
latter. In color it is black like a crow. It has a long and slightly
curved bill. It is expert in diving into water and catching fish.
During the daytime the birds gather on islands; at night they roost
in the trees of forests. The ordure of the birds is poisonous, and the
trees on which for a long time they have perched will decay. The
fishermen in the southern parts of the country keep them by tens,
tying them together, and thus they catch fish for them. The passage
in Tu Fu's poem that 'families raise black devils and at every meal
feed on yellow fish' is referred by some to this species. There is
another kind resembling the cormorant, but with a head like that of
a snake, a long neck, and moulting during the winter; it roosts on the
banks of mountain-streams, and at the sight of men is unable to walk
and dives into the water. This is identical with what the Er ya calls
yao t'ou %& M or yu kiao j& $&.; it is not used in the pharmacopoeia."

This species, under the name yu kiao or simply kiao ("shark"),
is also mentioned by Ch'en Ts'ang-k'i of the T'ang, who describes
it as having a slender head and a long body and being white in the
upper part of the neck (cf. Cheng lei pen ts'ao, chap. 19, p. 19b).
The description of this species, as given by Li Shi-chen, is almost
identical with that in the Er ya i, save that there the reference to the
two names is wanting.

During the Ming period cormorant fishing appears to have been
flourishing. Sii Fang % ^ of the Ming writes, without specifying
localities, that "cormorants were reared by many people along the
rivers, being carried on small rafts. Fishing was done in stagnant
water or in places where the river formed eddies and where fishes
congregated. The birds dived deeply into the water and swiftly
brought up small fishes; when their strength failed in carrying big
ones, they broke them up. A small ring was tied around their necks,
so that they could not swallow fishes of large size; when they caught
such, the fishermen took them away at once. Small fishes entered
their throats as far as the spot where the ring was placed, but the
birds could not swallow them on account of the bones. When the
fishes had piled up and the birds were hungry, they were fed with a
couple of fishes. The birds were greedy and insatiable, but the
fishermen were satisfied and reaped a large profit" (text in T'u shu
tsi ch'eng, XIX, chap. 45, i wen).

To the Buddhists, naturally, cormorant breeding and what is
associated with it has been a thorn in the flesh. In a Buddhistic

226 Domestication of the Cormorant

tract written in the colloquial language and published by L. Wieger
(Moral Tenets and Customs in China, p. 203, Ho-kien-fu, 1913),
the officials are urged to prohibit the keeping of cormorants as well as
fishing or catching crabs. Here the term yil ying M. M is used.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

The center of cormorant fishing is the lower Yangtse Basin
including the provinces of An-hui, Kiang-su, and Che-kiang, the
present T'ai-p'ing fu on the Yangtse being pointed out as early as
the tenth century. The region around Lake T'ai (T'ai hu) and the
entire country intersected by a net of canals around Wu-si, Su-chou,
Hang-chou, Chu chou, Shao-hing, Fung-hua, and Ning-po swarm
with cormorants kept by fishermen. The easternmost point to which
the trained cormorant advanced is Ting-hai on the Island of Chu-san
(Ting-hai t'ing chi ^ M M $, chap. 34, p. 42). The most celebrated
of the localities of Che-kiang is T'ang-si-chen, a small town situated 50
li northwest of Hang-chou, whose inhabitants are reputed to
possess a secret which insures to them a decided success in the rearing
of cormorants (Fauvel, p. 230). Nearly all district and prefectural
gazetteers of the province allude to the industry; for example,
Ts'ing-t'ien Men chi pf BB $£ a£ (1875, chap. 4, p. 29) ; Shao-hing fu
chi *g m #F 1&, chap. 11, p. 31; Ts'e-k'i hien chi & & U 1&,
chap. 54, p. 9. In the region of Shao-hing and Ning-po I observed
cormorant fishing many times in 1901.

From Che-kiang the practice spread to the province southward,
Fu-kien. A careful examination of the prefectural and district
gazetteers of this province in the Library of Congress has led me to
the following result. Fishing with cormorants occurs all along the
seacoast of Fu-kien from Fu-ning fu in the north down to Fu-chou,
Hing-hua, Ts'iian-chou, and Chang-chou in the south, all along the
Min River from Yen-p'ing to Fu-chou; further, in Lung-yen chou,
Yung-ch'un chou, as far west as T'ing-chou fu (tT #i fft 1&, chap. 8,
p. 19) and as far north as Kien-ning fu. It may be said, therefore,
that cormorant fishing is generally practised over the entire province.

As to Fu-chou, cormorant fishing was observed by R. Fortune
(I p. 88) in 1843 and by G. Smith in 1845 in the suburb of Nan-tai
(Chinese Repository, XV, 1846, p. 207). Freeman and Salvin
(p. 328) also state that they met with people who saw it about
Fu-chou fu, at the mouth of the river. Cormorant fishing is still
actively pursued there.

The two coterminous provinces Che-kiang and Fu-kien have
always exchanged cultural products, and most probably cormorant
fishing spread from Che-kiang to Fu-kien. The Gazetteer of
Hing-hua fa H ft #F j& (chap. 14, p. 6) in Fu-kien stresses the

227

228 Domestication of the Cormorant

fact that "the people of Che-kiang are in the habit of raising cor-
morants who dive to catch fish, swallowing the small ones, but
bringing the big ones to their master."

In Fu-chou, Fu-kien, it seems to be customary that when a bird
has brought a fish to the surface, the boatman paddles his raft to the
spot and casts a net into the river, hauling bird and fish on board
(G. Smith, Chinese Repository, XV, 1846, p. 207). This unnecessary
procedure goes to show that the fishermen in question had passed to
the use of the cormorant from a former method of fishing with nets.
J. Doolittle (Social Life of the Chinese, I, 1865, p. 55) intimates
that the fishermen of Fu-chou take bird and fish out of the water with
a dip-net only in case the fish is a large one and a struggle ensues
between bird and fish.

In An-hui Province, to which our earliest Chinese account relates,
the district of Wu-ho 3l f^T f$ enjoys a reputation for breeding
cormorants (Korrigan, p. 39). This method of fishing is practised
all along the Huai River ?# M, which traverses Ho-nan and the
northern part of An-hui.

As to the province of Kiang-si, we have observations of cor-
morant fishing made in the prefecture of Nan-an ^j 5£? f(f by Father
Ripa in 1710 (F. Prandi, Memoirs of Father Ripa, 1844, p. 40).
The P'o-yang Lake in this province, as well as the Tung-t'ing Lake
in the adjoining province of Hu-nan, swarms with fishermen who avail
themselves of the cormorant. The birds coming from Hu-nan, as
well as from Ho-nan, enjoy a special reputation. The district of
Siang-yin M "i? in the prefecture of Ch'ang-sha, and Li chou
^ ^N, as well, are emphasized as cormorant-breeding localities in the
Hu-nan fang wu chi M1& ~3j % ^ (chap. 2, p. 17; chap. 7, p. 14.
Regarding this work see below, p. 237).

In Kwang-tung Province cormorant fishing is practised at Ts'ung-
hua $t it, in the prefecture of Kwang-chou (witnessed by J. H. Gray,
China, II, 1878, p. 297). De Guignes (Voyages a Peking, Manille
etc. faits dans l'intervalle des ann^es 1784 a 1801, I, 1808, pp. 271,
289, 293) observed in 1794 cormorant fishing in the prefecture of
Shao-chou IS #1 #p. Dyer Ball mentions the North River above
Canton and the river above Ch'ao-chou fu M :H1 fft.

Dr. Gudger (I pp. 37, 38) has reproduced two photographs
taken by Dr. C. K. Edmunds in 1907 on the Fu River, a tributary
of the Si Kiang or West River. Dr. Edmunds states that he found
fishing with the cormorant everywhere practised on the lower sections
of the Grand Canal and the connecting canals in the Yangtse Delta
and throughout South China generally.

Geographical Distribution 229

That there is cormorant breeding in Kwei-chou Province may be
inferred from a note of E. H. Parker (Up the Yangtse, p. 233, Shang-
hai, 1899), who observed fishing cormorants in the gorges of the
upper Yangtse and remarks, "They are said to come from the wild
lands of Yun-nan and Kwei-chou, notably from the Wu-chiang
River in the latter province. There is a well-known place on the
Se-ch'wan and Yun-nan frontier, called Lao-wa Tan, which perhaps
may have some connection with the catching of these birds." E. G.
Kemp (The Face of China, 1909, p. 201) gives a colored picture of
the Lao-wa Tan river and village, saying that the name means
"cormorant rapid."

Cormorant fishing in Yiin-nan Province is attested by T'an Ts'ui
W. 3£ in his Tien hai yu heng chi M ffe M $& M (chap. 6, p. 3b, ed.
of Wen ying lou yii ti ts'ung shu), published in 1799. "In the southern
part of Tien (Yiin-nan) the inhabitants of many mountains and
rivers rear cormorants by catching them. Though it cannot be said
that 'all families raise black devils' [quoting Tu Fu], they occur in
certain places. In the same manner as they rear falcons to seize
pheasants and hares, they raise cormorants for the purpose of
catching fish. These birds perfectly understand the commands of
men and exert themselves for men's benefit. They are also styled
'aquatic old crow.' It happens that several birds unite forces in
catching a large fish, some pecking the eyes of the fish, others its fins,
others its tail and dorsal fin. When the fish is thus exhausted, they lift
it together out of the water, and their master takes the fish. Truly,
a clever performance!" See also Yiin-nan t'ung chi k'ao (chap. 68,
p. 23), which in the main cites T'an Ts'ui.

His observation as to several birds seizing a large fish is quite
correct and has also been made by several European writers. "And,
what is more wonderful still, if one of the cormorants gets hold of a
fish of large size, so large that he would have some difficulty in
taking it to the boat, some of the others, seeing his dilemma, hasten
to his assistance, and with their efforts united capture the animal
and haul him off to the boat" (R. Fortune). Harting once saw
three cormorants trying to tackle a large eel which one of them had
brought up, but from its size and weight could not hold; the other
two came to his assistance, and the three worried it like hounds with
a fox.

F. Gamier (Voyage d'exploration en Indo-Chine, I, 1873, p. 517)
noticed the fishing with cormorants on the lake of Ta-li fu, Yiin-nan,
saying that the fishermen cast rice on the water as a bait to the

230 Domestication of the Cormorant

fish. Prince Henri d'Orleans (From Tonkin to India, 1898, p. 141)
observed cormorant fishing on the lake of Ta-li fu, giving a sketch
of a boat with eight birds.

The province of Se-ch'wan has been an active center of cormorant
breeding and fishing ever since the days of the Sung dynasty. We
have seen in the section of Historical Data that the prefecture of
K'wei-chou H ji\ M played an eminent role in this respect during
the middle ages. The Se-ch'wan t'ung chi P9 )\\ M, ^ (chap. 74, pp. 21,
28a) gives the same prefecture, as well as Mei chou M jW, among
localities where cormorants are kept. They are likewise used in the
districts of Ch'eng-tu and Hwa-yang ($t %$ H 1&, chap. 3, p. 10;
# IB II £, chap. 42, p. 49b).

On the whole, cormorant fishing occurs intensely in central,
western, and southern China. The foregoing citations of localities
should merely be taken as examples. It is impossible and also un-
necessary to give a complete list of such localities. In the north of
China keeping of cormorants is comparatively rare, but sporadically
it does occur wherever conditions are suitable.

As to Shan-tung, F. von Richthofen (Schantung, 1898, p. 97)
limits cormorant fishing to the western part of the province, which
is quite natural, as the employment of the bird followed the Grand
Canal. John Barrow's (Travels in China, 1804, p. 506) brief remarks
refer to Tsi-ning chou.

J. NieuhofTs (or Neuhof's) account (Gesantschaft der ost-indi-
schen Geselschaft, 1669, p. 134) of cormorant fishing refers to Ning-
yang ^ Wj in Yen-chou fu, western Shan-tung. In another passage
(p. 353) Nieuhof writes that the bird louwa, as he calls it (the name
cormorant was unknown to him), occurs throughout Sina.

Dr. Gudger (I p. 39) has reproduced a photograph taken in 1921
by Mrs. Mary G. Lucas of cormorants ready for fishing on a stream
outside of Peking. I have never seen cormorant fishing or heard of
it in the environment of Peking or in other places of Chi-li, but
Sowerby (p. 72) refers domesticated cormorants to the vicinity of
the lakes in Pao-ting fu and to the stretches of water to the west
of Tientsin.

That cormorant fishing occurs on the Wei River in Shen-si is
known to me only from a photograph published by Clark and
Sowerby, "Through Shen-kan," plate XX, which is thus captioned,
but no description of it is given.

As has been shown, cormorant fishing is distributed in China over
a vast stretch of territory. The cause of this wide distribution lies
in the fact that the bird has been truly domesticated and is bred in

Geographical Distribution 231

captivity, with the result that hundreds of birds thus bred can be
easily transported from one locality to another where there are
prospective fishing grounds. In opposition to China, cormorant
fishing is restricted in Japan to certain localities and practically
to a single fish, the ayu aforementioned. In Japan, the trained
cormorants are recruited and always replenished from wild stock,
so that no active trade in the birds could develop. The principal
and famous old center of cormorant fishing in Japan is the Nagara
River It $i )\\, the town of Gifu C& -$• being the metropolis of the
industry.

Cormorant fishing is further practised on Lake Biwa and in the
northern part of Kyushu in the Naka and Sawara Rivers, in
the department of Fukuoka M |33 JH, province of Chikugo; and in the
Sagami +11 ^, Tama % Hi or 3£ JM and Ara $c Jl| Rivers near Tokyo,
which enter into the Sea of Japan.

A study of the geographical distribution, unfortunately, does not
allow us to recognize exactly in what territory of China the cormorant
was first domesticated and how it was diffused from this center to
other localities. The documents fail us. Certain it is that northern
China must be excluded from the places where the domestication
might have originated. The lower Yangtse Basin would seem to
have been the logical center. I would not lay too much stress on
the fact that the majority of Sung authors refer to cormorant fishing
in Se-ch'wan; the fact remains that they were not interested in
the subject itself, but that they were exercised over the significance
of the term wu kwei; and since the latter hailed from Se-ch'wan,
the existence of trained cormorants there had to be emphasized.
While in this manner we get good evidence for Se-ch'wan, there is
no reason to believe that the trained cormorant was monopolized
by this province during the Sung period; it must certainly have
persisted in the prefecture of T'ai-p'ing on the lower Yangtse, where
it is reported in the tenth century. Assuming that there the primeval
domestication took its origin, it is not difficult to realize how from
An-hui and Che-kiang it spread to Fu-kien, Kiang-si, Hu-nan, and
Kwang-tung, how another movement sent the domestication up the
Yangtse to Se-ch'wan and Yun-nan, and finally how the Imperial
Canal promoted its northward migration through Kiang-su, Shan-
tung, and Chi-li.

RELATION OF JAPANESE TO CHINESE
CORMORANT FISHING

The first problem that confronts us is, What is the relation of
Japanese to Chinese cormorant fishing? Did one nation acquire the
domestication from the other? Or what was the historical develop-
ment? The only author who has ever ventilated this question is
Dr. Gudger (II p. 8), who argues as follows: "If now the commonly
held belief be accepted that Chinese culture and civilization (includ-
ing the use of the cormorant in fishing) antedated that of Japan,
then, since we have dates for the sending of Chinese embassies to
Japan, we need not find it difficult to believe that the Japanese
learned this method of taking fish from the Chinese, and indeed
possibly got their first birds from these embassies." This conclusion,
first of all, is based on wrong premises; and, secondly, is a rather
sweeping generalization unsupported by any evidence. Gudger did
not have the historical side of the question straight. He quotes the
notice of the Sui shu indirectly by translating it from Hervey-Saint-
Denys' rendering of Ma Twan-lin's Wen hien t'ung k'ao, and is thus
led to the belief that it refers to the thirteenth (instead of the sixth
or seventh) century. Ma Twan-lin's work, of course, has no inde-
pendent value and presents merely a compilation of older sources;
the quotation given by Dr. Gudger is merely copied from the account
of Japan contained in the Sui Annals. As shown above, this is the
earliest extant reference to cormorant fishing in the world, and is
much earlier than any Chinese references to the practice in China.
The first unmistakable notice of cormorant training in China is not
older than the tenth century, so that according to our Chinese
documentary evidence the use of the bird in Japan antedates that
in China by at least three centuries, while according to Japanese
sources it is even much older. For this reason no serious historian
will rush at the conclusion that the Japanese have simply adopted
the domestication from the Chinese, or will indulge in such com-
fortable speculations as the one that the Japanese possibly got their
first birds from Chinese embassies. If this had been the case, Japanese
writers would have been sincere enough to admit it. Whenever the
Japanese received cultural elements from China or Korea, they placed
such indebtedness on record. We have no right to conclude that
because much of ancient Japanese culture is derived from China,

232

Japanese and Chinese Cormorant Fishing 233

everything Japanese must have radiated from the same center; this
has to be proved for each and every case, and we have to be mindful
of the fact that there are numerous Japanese cultural traits which
cannot be laid at the threshold of China. L. Reinhardt (Kultur-
geschichte der Nutztiere, 1912, p. 403), without giving any reason,
alleges that the Japanese learned the fishing with cormorants from
the Chinese.

Let us consider the opposite possibility that the Chinese might
be indebted to Japan for the trained cormorant. E. H. Parker, in
translating Ma Twan-lin's account of Japan (Transactions As. Soc.
of Japan, XXII, 1894, p. 44), comments on the cormorant passage,
"It would thus seem that the Chinese owe at least one idea to the
Japanese." The Chinese knew of this Japanese fishing method in
the beginning of the seventh century, and the fact was recorded in
the official dynastic annals. The records of foreign countries con-
tained in the Sui shu, as well as the biographical portion, were
completed in a.d. 636. It would not be impossible that a Chinese
official who read this notice might have conceived the idea of inducing
his compatriots to try the same experiment; but, if an official had
taken the initiative in this matter, some official record of this event
would surely have been preserved. And then we should expect to
see this experiment carried out soon afterwards, say, in the beginning
of the T'ang period ; yet we face this long gap of nearly three centuries
between the Sui and the Wu-tai periods which cannot be bridged
over. The possibility that the Japanese account of the Sui shu or
Pei shi should have struck the eyes of a fisherman of An-hui, Che-
kiang, or Se-ch'wan appears to me so remote that it does not merit
a discussion.

The plain fact remains that Chinese sources do not admit any
indebtedness to Japan in matters of cormorant fishing, in the same
manner as the Japanese on their part do not credit it to the Chinese.
And this fact, in my opinion, carries weight. I have already insisted
on Japanese honesty, and I plead the same degree of honesty for the
Chinese. Every one familiar with the history of Chinese civilization
knows only too well that the Chinese have always been frank and
upright in acknowledging foreign loans. To us trained in scientific
thought the domestication of the cormorant appears a significant
affair; and, as pointed out, it is a unique phenomenon in the history
of the world. To the Japanese and Chinese, however, who alone of
all peoples accomplished the permanent training of the bird, it is
something insignificant over which they never made any fuss. These
two nations were always distinguished for modesty, reserve, lack of

234 Domestication of the Cormorant

conceit and ego worship. Neither preserved the name of the first
fisherman or men who did the deed. It was too trifling a matter.
But if the Greeks or Romans had accomplished it, what pride would
swell the chests of our classicists! Of course, the Greeks would have
handed down the name of the "inventor" with a romantic story of
how his genius was inspired by the gods, and every school boy in
our midst would be obliged to learn it by heart. As matters stand
now, he is spared this thrilling or sad experience, and things peculiarly
Japanese and Chinese do not bother our public. The thirteenth
edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica devotes an entire column
to the cormorant with a lengthy story of its training in Europe,
but maintains cold silence about its domestication in Japan and
China! In the fourteenth and last edition the article in question is
curtailed to a half column, and it is said, "The practice is nearly
obsolete in Europe, though still common in China." And this is all.

As the evidence stands, there is but one conclusion admissible,
and this is that the domestication of the cormorant and everything
connected therewith was independently achieved in China and Japan.
This conclusion is corroborated by many facts which lie in the
domestication itself. The principal facts are as follows:

The method of using and treating the cormorant in Japan is
fundamentally and radically different from that of China. Here the
Latin saying "si duo idem faciunt, idem non est" holds good. What
the Japanese practise may be briefly defined under the name of the
harness or team method. A cord or rein of spruce fiber, about twelve
feet long, is attached to the body of each bird, and the master lowers
the birds one by one, altogether a team of twelve, into the stream
and gathers all reins in his left hand, manipulating the various lines
thereafter with his right hand, as occasion requires, to keep them
free of tangles. This method is absolutely unknown anywhere in
China. In China, the cormorant has reached a perfect stage of
domestication, is reared in captivity, and is the born slave of his
master. Nothing like this is at present done in Japan, where the
cormorants pressed into service are all caught from wild stock on
the coast of the Owari Gulf and immediately receive their training.
The Japanese method in all its various details is as different from
the Chinese as both Japanese and Chinese methods are at variance
with that formerly adopted in Europe. What these methods are
will be more fully discussed in the following chapter. The point to
be made here is that in view of these principal differences Chinese
and Japanese utilization of the cormorant cannot have a common
basis of origin. The two are entirely distinct. The only point in

Japanese and Chinese Cormorant Fishing 235

common to the two civilizations is that the cormorant is used by
man for the purpose of catching fish; but this is all, and here the
coincidence comes to an end. The discrepancies outbalance in
weight the outward similarity. Different causes, different methods
and technique have merely yielded a similar result.

Another observation remains to be made. It is a significant
fact that cormorant fishing was never practised in Korea and that
it is unknown there at present (I speak advisedly, as I had occasion
to interrogate Korean students on this point). Accordingly, cormo-
rant fishing does not belong to that series of culture elements which
spread from China to Korea and were further transmitted from Korea
to Japan. In fact, the Chinese cormorant domestication did not
spread at all; it was not communicated to any of those nations which
came under the spell of Chinese civilization. The aboriginal tribes
inhabiting western and southern China did not adopt it; neither did
the Annamese or any other peoples of Indo-China or the Siamese,
Burmese, or Malayans. The domestication of the cormorant and
the peculiar method of raising, training, and using the bird have
remained a purely and typically Chinese affair. And this method
did not spread to Japan. Japan has evolved a method of her own
and peculiarly herself without the aid of outward influences.

The question of a possible mutual stimulus, that may be raised,
dwindles into insignificance and is wholly immaterial, as compared
with the basic processes. If it is a question of priority and precedence
in originality, the balance of the evidence certainly favors the
Japanese.

THE PROCESS OF DOMESTICATION

The only scholar who has treated of the cormorant as a domesti-
cation, unfortunately too briefly, is Eduard Hahn (Die Haustiere,
1896, pp. 347-350). No other book dealing seriously with domesti-
cated animals — and there are many of these — mentions the cormo-
rant. Hahn points out that the cormorant as a domesticated animal
is an achievement of Chinese civilization, which shows the patience
and intelligence of the Chinese at their best. He refers to Friar
Odoric, Armand David, and R. Fortune. It was vaguely known to
him that fishing with cormorants is practised in Japan, and he offers
a curious misunderstanding of a passage in Journal asiatique (1871,
p. 403), "If it be correct that the mythical Matwan-lin is Japan,
this method must go back to very ancient times, as far back as the
sixth century A.D." L. Reinhardt, in his popular book, "Kultur-
geschichte der Nutztiere" (1912, pp. 400-403), gives a few notes on
the life of the wild bird, copies the historical information of Hahn
(without acknowledgment and adding some errors of his own), and
says very little about the domestication itself.

The wild cormorant is not difficult to tame. The only statement
to the contrary I have found is made by L. Reinhardt (op. cit., p. 403),
who writes, "As the excellent ornithologist Naumann with good
reason designates the cormorant as difficult to tame and fond of
biting, the great patience and endurance of the Chinese in making
it a domestic animal must be the more acknowledged." Naumann
may have been a good ornithologist, but has never attempted to
train a cormorant. Those who did venture to dissent from him.

Harting (p. 438), who had much experience in training cormorants,
states that "cormorants are by no means difficult to train, and do
not require half the care and attention which has to be bestowed
upon hawks for example." Pichot (p. 27) writes in the same spirit.
"This web-footed marine bird is very easily tamed. His heart is very
near to his stomach, and one may be reached by way of the other. As
I was engaged in falconry, I was naturally led to practising cormorant
fishing. This is a delightful sport and the easier, as the cormorant
becomes rapidly familiar; if you feed him out of your hand, you will
have trouble to prevent him from following you everywhere, ascend-
ing the stairs behind you, perching on your furniture, and leaving
on all pieces incontestable traces of his rapid and abundant digestion."

236

The Process of Domestication 237

In China, the cormorant has attained the stage of a complete
and perfect domestication, the birds propagating and being reared
in captivity. It is said by Sowerby (p. 73) that the domestic stocks
are replenished from time to time by the capture of wild birds or
by robbing the latter's nests; it is very sensible, of course, to refresh
the blood of a domestic species occasionally by interbreeding with a
wild congener, but I believe this is but seldom done. The early
travelers to China were merely content to record their surface observa-
tions of cormorant fishing without inquiring into the life and habits
of the bird. Nieuhoff was the only one who possessed enough
intelligence to ask the question whether the birds also propagated
and bred many young, and was given the reply that "this happens,
but very slowly and little." (Dr. Gudger [I p. 12] cites Nieuhoff in
Ogilby's English translation of 1669, which in the cormorant section
is inaccurate and deficient.)

A statement concerning the use of domesticated birds is also
found in a Chinese source. The Hu-nan fang wu chi ffll 1& 3j fyj ]&
("Record of the Local Products of Hu-nan Province"), written
in 1818 by Ki Chung-liang Jgf to & and Tsiang Siang-wei M & #t
(chap. 7, p. 14; edition before me printed in 1864) cites from the
San ch'ang wu chai Ch'ang shwo H £t % # H: s£ the following: "In
the south the cormorants are all attached to the fishermen's houses,
and are fed and reared by them. I have never heard that birds born
in freedom (or wild birds) are used for fishing" ($j + S& M % fl&
% J& # * K ^ W £ #). The date of the book San ch'ang, etc.,
is not directly known to me, but as farther on Li Shi-chen's Pen
ts'ao kang mu is quoted in it, it must be a product of the seventeenth
or eighteenth century; the title of the book is Ch'ang shwo, and it
was published by the San ch'ang wu Studio which issued also a
ts'ung shu.

The effect of the domestication is shown in the complete submis-
sion and subordination of the birds, who become as docile and obedient
as dogs, knowing their master and his boat and understanding his
commands perfectly well, and in their outward appearance they
display variation in color, a marked characteristic of all domestic
breeds. Sowerby (p. 72) observed in Chi-li many pied or even
pure white individuals.

The females lay yearly from three to nine eggs in the first and
eighth month. The eggs are green in color and the size of a duck's
egg; what is called the white of the egg is light greenish; the eggs
are never consumed. The eggs of the first month are the only ones
retained for hatching, for the reason that the young birds will grow

238 Domestication of the Cormorant

up in the spring; if those of the eighth month were hatched, the young,
who are extremely sensitive to cold weather, it is feared, would not
live through the winter. The eggs are always hatched by hens, not
by the cormorant mother. The only author who gives a different
account is Dabry de Thiersant, who writes that "the cormorants
prepare in a spot retired and dark a nest of straw, on which the
female lays her eggs which she herself covers all the time." I have
but little confidence in this statement, in view of the fact that the
author shows himself rather uncritical and credulous in his notes
on the cormorant; for instance, when he asserts that on the tenth
day after birth the fledglings are taken by the trainer out on his
boat and seek their places on the common perch; while the training,
in fact, begins only two months from the date of birth.

The fact that the eggs are given to hens to hatch is attributed by
several authors to the female cormorants being bad mothers (Fauvel,
p. 230). "Curiously enough the mothers are so careless that they
cannot be trusted to rear their own young" (Gordon-Cumming in
Dyer Ball, p. 182). This comment savors of Chinese mentality,
being made in response to a question, and is either really believed
by the breeder or is just elicited to satisfy the curiosity of an impor-
tune inquirer. This explanation, of course, is absurd, for "the young
of the wild species are assiduously fed and cared for by the parents"
(Sowerby) ; and how with this alleged lack of maternal affection could
the species have spread over the entire world? The female kept
in captivity lacks her nest in high trees and the natural conditions
of her life, and this rather is the reason why she declines to incubate
the eggs. Moreover, experience has taught the breeders that safer
and faster results are attained from hens than from female cormorants.

The fledglings come out of the egg after a month's incubation.
They cannot stand on their legs, and are very sensitive to cold.
They are transferred to cotton-stuffed baskets which are kept in a
warm room. The young birds are enveloped in cotton wool and fed
with small morsels of bean-curd (tou-fu) and pellets of raw fish,
preferably eel, if procurable. Cormorants are inordinately fond of
eels and prefer them to all other fish; where eels are plentiful they
will even catch nothing else. Fortune was given the information
that for five days the young are fed with eels' blood and that after
five days they can be fed with eels' flesh chopped fine. Dabry de
Thiersant denies that this is done in the central provinces, and
states that during seven days the young receive three times a day
finely minced meat which they prefer to any other food; afterwards
small fish are added to the meat. There is no doubt that in matters

The Process of Domestication 239

of feeding and training a good many local variations exist. Lean
and weak birds are fed on dogs' flesh ( Ning-hua Men chi 3£ it f& iS,
chap. 2, p. 128). "After the tenth month the cormorants are given
dog's flesh which will keep their bodies warm and protect them from
the cold ; even when breaking through the ice and plunging into the
water, they will not die from a chill" (Pen ts'ao kang mu shi i,
chap. 9, p. 7b).

Under the heading "Method of rearing cormorants," Fang I-chi
3; Jsi H?, in his Wu li siao shi fyt} M 4* M, (chap. 10, p. 5), gives the
following brief notes: "For a period of six months the (young)
cormorants are susceptible to cold. Their keepers wrap them in
refuse cotton and feed them with pepper. In autumn and winter
the birds are turned loose into the water to catch fish. Those incu-
bated in the summer are so strong that they can peck up the eye-
balls of large fish." If pepper is given the young birds, it must be
mixed, of course, with some food, which Fang I-chi forgets to men-
tion, and may act as a sort of tonic.

At the end of a month feathers begin to cover the down, and the
quantity of fish is increased for their diet, while the proportion of
bean-curd is reduced. After the second month the birds have doubled
their size, and are fit for the market, a female being half as much
in price as a male. This difference in price is due to the superior
strength of the male who is able to capture larger fish.

When the nursery days are over, the schooling of the birds begins
at once, and they are turned over to a professional trainer. Their
wings are clipped to prevent their flying away. The first lesson is
as follows. A string is tied to one of the bird's legs, the other end
of the string being fastened to a stake set in the bank of the pond
or canal. The bird is driven into the water, the trainer whistling
a peculiar call and, if necessary, enforcing obedience by the persua-
sive strokes of a bamboo, the great educational means of China.
Small live fish are thrown to the bird who will pounce upon them
greedily, as he was previously kept on a reduced diet. He. is now
called back by a different whistle signal and, to make him under-
stand, is first pulled back by means of the string or line until he
has learned to comprehend the call and to obey it spontaneously.
This procedure is repeated daily for about a month till the bird is
accustomed to his master's voice and commands.

The second lesson is given in a boat along the same line as previ-
ously, and lasts four or five weeks according to the bird's intelligence.

When the young birds are accompanied by older well-trained
birds, which is usually done, the time of instruction is shortened

240 Domestication of the Cormorant

considerably, as they will quickly learn from their elders. At the
end of this period they are relieved of the leash or line. Birds not
properly trained by that time are regarded as stupid and hopeless.
A period of seven or eight months may be considered sufficient to
turn him into an expert fisher.

There is a good deal of individual character in the birds. Some
are intelligent, alive, and alert; others are dull, lazy, and sulky.
Some are more expert at diving and catching than others. European
writers have described the cormorant as "solemn, weird, uncanny";
but such words are elicited by impressions of our mind, and are
not objective characteristics of the bird. What is more important
is that each bird possesses enough individual characteristics to enable
his master to recognize him among a flock of other birds working
in the water; and vice versa, the birds are endowed with sufficient
intelligence to know their master and their boat; they always occupy
the same place assigned to them in the boat. Many fishermen name
their birds, and will always call them by their names.

"These birds differ much in their tempers, some being most spite-
ful and savage, as well as shy and disobedient in the field, whilst
others are just the reverse. They are very sagacious, knowing the
places where they have caught fish and are likely to meet with them
again, etc. They are also capable of great affection. Honest 'Isaac
Walton' was particularly fond of his master and, singularly enough,
he would not allow any one else to approach without showing fight.
When angry, the cry somewhat resembles the gobble of a turkey,
and when pleased, it is a loud guttural sound, like 'haw, haw!' "
(Freeman and Salvin, Falconry, p. 331).

The domesticated cormorants of China live in basket-like cages,
or in the summer are also left in the open where they are tied to their
perches by means of a leather thong fastened to one of their legs.

The fisherman who uses the birds is not necessarily the breeder.
There are special establishments which make it their business to
breed the birds and to sell them or lease them to the fishermen.
Fortune mentions such a large establishment, which he visited
in 1848, thirty or forty miles from Shanghai and between that town
and Chapu, where a pair was then sold at from six to eight dollars.
The tenants usually repay the owner of the birds with a certain
quantity of fish. Under this system the birds are worked as hard
as possible, for the fisherman's sole interest is in catching as large
a booty as possible in order to gain a surplus for himself in excess
to what he owes to his landlord. Under these circumstances the
friendly and sympathetic relations that exist between man and his

The Process of Domestication 241

domestic animals must be completely lost. The wholesale breeding
of birds, however, has one advantage that they can be distributed
and sold in the entire country.

The earlier writers on China represented cormorant fishing as a
sort of royal monopoly. R. Willes (see p. 245) has a fantastic
account of the king of China possessing a good store of barges full
of sea-crows allowed a monthly provision of rice; these barges the
king bestows upon his greatest magistrates. Juan Gonzalez de
Mendoza has a similar story, and Nieuhoff has the fishermen pay
an annual tax to the emperor for the use of the birds. With reference
to Lord Macartney, who stated that exorbitant taxes had to be paid
to the emperor for the permission to use cormorants, Fauvel remarks
that he never heard of such in Che-kiang and that they probably
existed nowhere in his time. Of course, the cormorant fishermen,
like every one else, paid an annual tax, but these taxes never were
excessive, nor has a government monopoly on cormorants ever
prevailed, nor has the government to all appearances ever taken an
interest in the whole business. It is known to every one who was
in the China of the Manchu dynasty that the people were in the
habit of complaining and sobbing to foreign visitors about high
taxation, oppression, and extortion, while in fact they were the most
lightly taxed people in the world, comparatively speaking. In
Chinese sources I have found nothing alluding to a cormorant mono-
poly or special taxation. The only item I have found is as follows:

In the Gazetteer of Ning-hua ^ it U J& (chap. 2, p. 128), in
the prefecture of T'ing-chou, Fu-kien, it is stated, "At present the
inhabitants of Yen and Kien M ft A (Yen-p'ing fu and Kien-ning
fu), who raise these birds, pay their taxes to the officials in rice ffi

# ^ H\"

Authors like Fortune and Fauvel have also given price quotations
for the birds, which can hardly claim any validity at present. I
mention only that the Ning-hua Men chi (chap. 2, p. 128) gives the
price of a single bird as ten taels (ounces of silver), and this may
be regarded as an average value.

Most writers who have described cormorant fishing, although
their accounts are incomplete and deficient, do not fail to mention
the ring or strap around the bird's neck, and do not get tired of
repeating the worn-out statement that this is done to prevent him
from swallowing the fish which he catches. Friar Odoric (Yule,
Cathay, new ed., II, p. 190) is the first of European travelers who
noted that the fisherman tied a cord round the birds' necks that
they might not be able to swallow the fish which they caught. True

242 Domestication of the Cormorant

it is Chinese authors make the same statement. Several have been
quoted to this effect (p. 224) , and another may be added here. "Those
who raise the cormorant tie a cord around its neck, so that small
fishes can pass its throat, while big fishes can not; from time to time
the fishermen call the bird and take the fish away from it; and then
they send it out again" (Yung-ch'un chou chi ?K ^ jNi 1&, chap. 7,
p. 22; the same in Ning-hua Men chi, chap. 2, p. 127; both localities
are in Fu-kien).

The fact itself is correct, but is not logically expressed. That
the cormorant is prevented from swallowing a large fish is the effect
of the ring or strap, but not the cause of it, which is quite different.
The ring is the symbol of the cormorant's bondage, and was the
original expedient that brought its domestication about. It takes
the place of the dog's neck-collar, the horse's bit, the water-buffalo's
nose-ring, the falcon's leash and hood. In order to govern and keep
a cormorant, man required some means of grasping and holding him,
and a cord of hemp slung around his neck and terminating in a line
which man could seize was the means he devised. Man's first thought
in training the bird was to hold him in check, to bridle him, to direct
him; he did not think, at first, of preventing the bird from swallowing
large fish; this resulted as a secondary effect from the use of the strap
or ring.

The ring is called chuan HI (Ma-kia-hiang t'ing chi $? %. # M &,
chap. 12, p. 11) ; in the Sui shu, as pointed out above (p. 212), hwan.

Great care must be exercised in placing the cord or strap around
the bird's neck; it must be fastened in such a way that it will not
slip farther down upon his neck, as this would be apt to choke him.

Different materials are used for the ring in various localities;
straw, hemp, bast, tow, bamboo (Kwang-tung), rattan, and even
iron (Maffei and Nieuhoff) are reported. The use of iron is unneces-
sary, even foolish, as its weight will hamper the bird's free movements.

That the neck-collar is merely a stepping-stone in the gradual
development of the domestication becomes clear from the fact that
in the last and highest stage of development the neck-collar is simply
discarded, especially in Che-kiang. At this stage of the game the
birds are disciplined to such a degree of perfection that they fish
in unrestrained and absolute freedom. A well-trained cormorant,
while on duty, will not swallow any fish whether large or small;
he knows his business and his lord.

G. Staunton (Account of an Embassy to the Emperor of China,
1797, II, p. 388), for instance, reports that "the birds appeared to
be so well trained, that it did not require either ring or cord about

The Process of Domestication 243

their throats to prevent them from swallowing any portion of their
prey." His observations were made on the Imperial Canal near
Hang-chou. Milne (Life in China, 1857, p. 307) writes that he
could find neither ring nor cord about the necks of any of them
to prevent the swallowing of fish.

De Guignes (Voyages a Peking, I, pp. 271, 289) states expressly
that in Kwang-tung Province, where he noticed cormorant fishing
in three different places (in 1794), the birds were free and appeared
well tamed; "they did not have, as P. du Halde says, a collar around
their necks."

What Friar Odoric describes (Yule, Cathay, II, p. 190) is also a
free method of fishing which indicates a highly developed stage in the
evolution of domestication, though of a somewhat lower degree than
the preceding one. The water-fowl were let loose without being
driven, and straightway began to dive, catching great numbers of
fish and putting these of their own accord into the baskets, so that
before long all the three baskets were full. Of course, as mentioned
previously, Odoric's birds were equipped with the neck-strap; and
when their task was finished, they were tied to perches in the boat.

In some parts of the country the fishermen haul the bird with his
catch out of the water in a dip-net, and methods of managing the
bird vary according to locality. For instance, at Tsi-ning chou and
probably in other places too, the fisherman who commands a flock of
ten or twelve birds will not rush all of them into the water at once,
but will allow only one or two of them to dive at a time; and when he
perceives that they are fatigued, he will take them in and feed them
and then dispatch another pair into the water. This humane method
has the advantage that it will give the poor workers a good chance
for rest. On the Min River in Se-ch'wan cormorants, after diving,
are brought up to the surface in baskets of much the same shape as
the birds (E. G. Kemp, The Face of China, 1909, p. 180).

Some of these varying practices, particularly those bearing on
minor details, may simply be due to local variations of custom; but
in the main, the basic differences are an index of the various stages
through which the development of the domestication has run. It
is clear that the more the bird's movements are restricted, the more
restraint is imposed upon him, the older this stage of development
must be. It was gradually recognized that the laws deemed necessary
for his enslavement need not be too rigidly enforced, that the creature
was attached to his master and would not forsake him, that barriers
could be slowly removed and a greater amount of liberty be restored
to him. In this point the Chinese have manifested admirable

244 Domestication of the Cormorant

wisdom, and have advanced far beyond the Japanese. This indeed
is the goal for which all cormorant domestication must strive —
granting the bird a maximum degree of freedom. This makes a
happy cormorant and a more successful and therefore happier
fisherman.

Another implement indispensable to the cormorant trainer and
fisherman is a long bamboo pole, which serves a twofold purpose —
propelling the raft or boat tenanted by the fisherman with the heavier
end of the pole and directing and controlling the movements of the
birds with the other. He uses the pole as the conductor of an orches-
tra does his baton. When the theatre of action is reached, he signals
to the birds to dive by beating the water with the pole. When a
bird fails to attend to his business, a blow of the bamboo on the water
near where the bird floats accompanied by an angry shouting, is
sufficient to remind him of his duty. Whenever a bird gets tired, or
when his gullet is filled with rich booty, the pole is stretched forth so
that he may jump and perch on it, and be lifted into the boat. On
the same bamboo pole the birds are carried from their home to the
water's edge and back home when their task is done (compare
Plate XIII).

The methods of fishing with cormorants have frequently been
described and are beyond the scope of this study which is concerned
with the cormorant as a domestication; but I wish to mention one
point, as it has not been brought out by previous authors. There are
two principal methods of fishing — the solitary one and the method
of group fishing. A man single-handed, especially on a raft, is able
to manage three or four cormorants and to attend to the whole
business (see Plates XV-XVI); a variation of this is duet fishing
when two men join in dividing labors, one steering and propelling
the boat, the other tending the birds and the fish caught by them.
Rafts are chiefly used in the southern provinces. Boats are either
single, or two of them are placed side by side and connected by a
plank; the latter are more stable (illustration in Korrigan, p. 42).
The raft owners usually operate with from two to four birds; the boat
masters, with ten or twelve. In group fishing a fishermen's gild
or association gets together and makes common cause. A fleet of
small boats moves into action and spreads out in a line or crescent
formation, setting the frightened fish moving and driving the birds
in front. As each fisherman knows his own birds and as each bird
knows his boat and his place on it, everything proceeds in orderly
fashion. The concerted action in this manoeuvring naturally insures
a larger haul of fish. The solitary method assuredly is older than the

The Process of Domestication 245

group or community method, and is the one pointed out in our earliest
Chinese source, the Ts'ing i lu, which advisedly refers to "a single
man" (above, p. 221). The first mention of community fishing
occurs in R. Willes' Reports of the Province of China (about 1565),
based on the data of Portuguese, chiefly Galeotto Pereira (Hakluyt,
Glasgow ed., II, p. 327). Here it is said (I modernize the old English
spelling), "At the hour appointed to fish, all the barges are brought
together in a circle, where the river is shallow, and the crows tied
together under the wings are let leap down into the water, some
under, some above, worth looking upon; each one as he has filled his
bag, goes to his own barge and empties it, which done he returns to
fish again. . . . There were in that city where I was, twenty barges
at the least of these aforesaid crows."

From what has been said about the present-day training of
cormorants, it is not difficult to imagine what the steps in the primeval
process of the domestication have been during the tenth century. A
wild young cormorant was ensnared, and the Chinese have always
been skilful bird-catchers. A cage with a perch, a cord and a leash
or line, a bamboo pole were all the paraphernalia required. A noose
was tied around the bird's neck, and along a line he was immediately
dispatched into the water. The first man who did it merits greater
admiration for the originality of his idea than for what he accom-
plished, while the bird as the natural fish-hunter is deserving of
greater credit for the achievement. At the outset it is difficult to
realize what keeps the enslaved cormorant in bondage, or why he
continues hard labor for an employer who has so little to offer him
in return. The service of domesticated animals is based on a silent
pact which gives them advantages not enjoyed by their wild con-
geners: proper shelter, protection from rapacious enemies, adequate
food, and assurance of a constant and regular food supply. The
cormorant to some extent suffers from what the modern Chinese
would call an "unequal treaty." He is hardly fed by man, but looks
out for his own meals, catching his own fish. In some parts of China
he is given a morsel to eat after every catch, and some fishermen even
feed their birds with their own hands, stroking their necks to facilitate
the downward movement of the food, which the birds are said to
like very much. They are also fed with morsels of bean-curd, but
this alone can hardly be a sufficient attraction for the bird to remain
in his state of socage. He has no natural enemies, as chickens and
pigeons have, from whom he would need protection. His quarters
are by no means palatial or sumptuous, and there is but little senti-
mentality in a fisherman's heart. Even granted that he treats his

246 Domestication of the Cormorant

birds well in his own interest, the cormorant's psychology is not
perfectly clear and requires further elucidation. I have never heard
of a cormorant attempting to break loose in order to gain his liberty,
and with his wings clipped and his spirit broken it is questionable
how far he would get; probably he would be pursued and soon
captured by his owner. Born and raised in captivity, he is ignorant
of the sweetness of liberty and looks upon slavery as his natural lot.

While the domestication of the cormorant has passed through
several successive stages and has improved by degrees, it is not
necessary to imagine that the primeval or initiatory process was a
superhuman task which required a long span of time. I have there-
fore suggested that in accordance with the present state of our
knowledge the beginnings of the domestication in China should not
be dated farther back than the tenth century A.D.

In its natural state the cormorant is said to live twenty to
twenty-five years. It is an interesting fact that in Japan the cap-
tured and trained birds reach a much higher age than the domesti-
cated ones of China. According to Ikenoya, the Japanese birds will
live to the age of twelve. Palmer, as quoted by Chamberlain,
estimates that they work well up to fifteen, often up to nineteen or
twenty years of age. According to Kuroda, birds from four to eight
years old are the best; beyond this age they begin to slow down in
their work, but they can be employed up to about fifteen years of age.

According to Jametel, the cormorants of China begin to lose their
plumage from their fourth year, and they usually die before reaching
the age of six years. Fauvel (p. 233) states that a good cormorant
can serve during five years, but at the lapse of this period begins to
lose its feathers and will die soon. Dabry de Thiersant, however, was
informed that the birds are serviceable up to the age of ten years.
Whatever the exact facts on either side may be, there is no doubt
that the average is much higher in Japan than in China. And the
reason for this is not far to seek. The Japanese birds are kept busy
only a five months' season and rest during the winter, while the
Chinese birds are worked and overworked the whole year round,
except during extreme frost in the winter. The Chinese have not
yet learned that domestic animals also need a vacation and time for
rest and play and that this concession will prolong their lives and
intensify their ability to work. There is no doubt also that the
Japanese treat and nurse their birds better than the Chinese. In the
summer, the cormorant quarters in Japan are even surrounded with
mosquito nets. Lack of cleanliness in their cages must necessarily
breed disease and doom many birds in China to a premature death.

The Process of Domestication 247

But aside from this, the Chinese method of domestication is
infinitely superior and preferable to the Japanese method of catching
young birds and training them. They are caught on their roosting
places around Shinoshima in the province of Owari. Their wings are
clipped, and they are sent blindfolded to Gifu. At first they are
very vicious, and are kept tied up. They are daily taken out at
noon, under the leash, on the river and allowed to dive, catch, and
swallow from one to two pounds of fish. After about fifteen days
they are taught to catch and disgorge fish.

At Gifu a cord is attached to the bird's foot and passes under its
belly up to its neck where it connects with the ring. Twelve birds
form a team, and their cords are fastened to a single line directed by
one master. In this manner the cormorants are kept close to the
boat and hampered in their free movements. Pichot (p. 32), in
criticizing this method, remarks that the true sport consists in having
the cormorant work with liberty without any other means of restraint
than the leather ring around his neck. I would go a step farther
and say that, as demonstrated by the example of Chinese fishermen,
even the ring can be dispensed with and that a well-trained cor-
morant may be given the "freedom of the seas." It might be advis-
able for the Japanese to send a commission of experts to China for a
thorough study of the Chinese system of cormorant breeding with a
view to apply it at home, or at least to improve the domestic system.
On the other hand, I am sure, Japanese cormorant experts could
teach the Chinese a great deal in the proper care of their birds.

The complex and cumbrous apparatus set in motion by the
Japanese is unconsciously inspired by the fear lest the captured bird
might escape, and he is fettered and closely watched every minute.
Too much unnecessary fuss is made about the whole business, and
too many fads and frills are connected with it. In the fishing method
followed by the Japanese the birds are unnecessarily excited, and
their agitation when in the water is increased by the burning sparks
which fall into the water from the braziers or cressets on the boat
intended to illuminate the nightly scene. The weird light of lanterns,
the noise from music and songs on the boats of the pleasure-seekers
make the birds still more nervous.

The Japanese procedure in fishing with harnessed cormorant
teams has the one advantage that the keeper has absolute control
over each member of his team and can pull him out of the water
from his particular line instantaneously he has caught some fish.
The Chinaman may lose some time in giving commands or repri-
manding or punishing lazy or recalcitrant birds, but he is more

248 Domestication of the Cormorant

humane and more sportsmanlike in allowing his birds some freedom
of action; and freedom, after all, is what makes good sport. The
Japanese method, although in its outward appearance a sport, is,
in fact, not a sport, at least so at the present time. I am inclined
to think that it was different in ancient and mediaeval Japan when
the cormorant was still regarded as a sacred bird. It was this
sacred, mythological character of the bird which prompted the
ancient Japanese to keep it in captivity, and, I am disposed to
believe, to domesticate it, although I cannot produce any docu-
mentary evidence to this effect. In the modern Japanese and
European sources I have been able to consult nothing is said about
the birds propagating in captivity or the breeding of birds born in
captivity; I should be very grateful for any information on this point,
as it is an important matter for the history of domestications.

In opposition to Japan cormorant fishing in China is carried on
during the day. This is reported alike by all observers. Sowerby
(p. 73), however, asserts that "sometimes and in some parts of China
the fishing is done at night, when great flares are carried on the
boats, which serve to attract the fish and also to help the birds to
see them." It would be interesting to have more specific information
on this point, especially as to the localities where it is done and as to
the methods applied.

In Japan, in opposition to China, cormorant fishing is usually
carried on during the night. In China it is an industry from which
fishermen gain a livelihood, while in Japan it has rather the character
of a sport connected with pleasure parties and spectacular festivals
for the entertainment of illustrious visitors and ordinary sightseers.
This, however, to all appearances, is a modern development which
does not hold good for ancient and mediaeval Japan. This recent
sporting tendency may be largely due to two imperial visits at Gifu
in 1878 and 1880.

Where cormorant fishing is a commercial enterprise in Japan, it is
also carried on in daytime only, in one locality both night and day.

Another difference between China and Japan is that Japanese
cormorant fishing is practically restricted to the ayu (above, p. 213),
while the Chinese without discrimination take any fish the cormorant
is able to hunt.

RELATION OF CORMORANT TO OTTER FISHING AND

EGRET TAMING

A question that remains to be answered is whether there is any
relation between otter fishing, as still practised in the upper Yangtse
Basin, and cormorant fishing. It would seem so at the surface,
judging from a remark of Sung K'i 5fc 1(5 (a.d. 998-1061), who in his
Pi ki ^ fil (known as 5fc /!; 3C & ^E Id) makes a certain Wang
Tse-huan 3: -J- £.7 say that he saw with his own eyes at Yung-chou
(in Hu-nan) tame otters kept for fishing in the place of (or, as
substitutes for) cormorants & W # HI & \X & % & Tfc tft &
and that these daily caught about ten catties of fish, enough to
supply the want of a family. Wang Tse-huan was apparently
familiar with cormorant fishing, while the sight of otter fishing was a
novel experience to him. It cannot be said, however, with any regard
to historical truth that the otter replaced the cormorant in certain
parts of the country; for otter fishing was practised at an earlier date
than cormorant fishing and was known under the T'ang. Translations
of two passages to this effect from T'ang authors were transmitted
by me to Dr. Gudger, who published them in his article Fishing with
the Otter (pp. 198-199). As cormorant fishing was in all probability
inaugurated in the Lower Yangtse Valley in the beginning of the
tenth century, the two events are distinct as to space and time, and
it is hardly necessary to assume an interrelation of the two. It
may be, of course, that news of otter fishing on the upper Yangtse
reached fishermen in the lower course of the river and might have
suggested to them a similar idea which may have set them to think-
ing about the cormorant. For the rest, the two events are entirely
different. The cormorant was gradually brought into a state of
domestication, while the otter could merely be tamed, and has
always remained in the feral state.

The egret (lu Ht, Ardea egretta) was also kept in captivity, although
it is not stated for which purpose. The earliest notice to this effect
I have been able to find occurs in the Mao shi ts'ao mu niao shou
ch'ung yiisu^t%^^M>%ktik1&ifc (chap. B, p. 4b, ed. of T'ang
Sung ts'ung shu), where it is said, "At present the people of Wu also
raise egrets" (^ ^ A Jf # ;£&). The authorship of this work is
ascribed to Lu Ki &£ Wt (a.d. 260 or 261-303), although my edition
of the T'ang Sung ts'ung shu makes him "T'ang"; but as Legge

249

250 Domestication of the Cormorant

(Classics, IV, p. 178) says that "the original work was lost and that
now current was compiled, it is not known when or by whom, mainly
from K'ung Ying-ta's constant quotation from it," it is difficult to
date the above passage. The Wu lei siang kan chi $3 M +B $L Je?,
ascribed to Su Shi (a.d. 1036-1101), says that "the heron is kept by
men in ponds and becomes as tame as domestic fowl; whenever the
day Pai-lu 6 H- (8th of September) appears, the herons fly away
and are gone." This evidently refers to the southward migration
of the birds. The same information is given in the P'i ya *$ 9f£ by
Lu Tien ^ fa (a.d. 1042-1102), who writes that "the people of the
present time raise white herons intensely and that there are birds
quite tame and docile; when they have left on the day Pai-lu, they
cannot be kept again." The Hwa king $L H, written by Ch'en
Hao-tse W. W -f in 1688 (chap. 6, p. 4b), says that many people keep
these birds in ponds and pools.

Li Fang ^ B# (a.d. 924-995), compiler of the T'ai p'ing yu Ian,
is said to have raised five herons whom he called "cloud guests"
(yun fco if 3§P), according to the Ts'e lin hai ts'o M $fc #1 Ib.

The Gazetteer of Shao-hing Bft M> #f J& (chap. 11, p. 31) gives
the following information: "The egret is snow-white in color, and
on its crest has a silk-like bunch over a foot long; when the bird
desires to catch fish, it droops this feather-bunch. Many people
living on the banks of rivers north of the mountains keep the egret
in their houses, and the birds become so tame that they do not fly
away; only during the day Pai Lu 3 E (8th of September) is it
necessary to cage the birds for the entire day so that they do not
escape."

If this information be correct (and it should be verified in the
locality), egret taming may bear some relation to cormorant training.
It is a curious coincidence that the employment of the heron in the
service of man begins about the same time as, or a little earlier than,
cormorant training, but it seems never to have reached a great
practical importance.

ICONOGRAPHY

The oldest representation of a cormorant known to me is a
carving in jade of the Chou period in Field Museum, Chicago.
Illustrated in Laufer, Archaic Chinese Jades, 1927, plate XXVI,
fig. 7, and as a vignette on page 205 of this article.

It is singular that cormorant fishing has not inspired any great
Chinese artist. To be sure, there are many drawings and pictures
of the subject of Ming and Ts'ing periods, but all these are mechanical
productions of small or no artistic value. I feel almost confident
in saying that no T'ang or Sung artist has ever painted a cormorant.
The Siian ho hwa p'u 1[ ?B :§£ fH enumerates many pictures of
herons, even herons engaged in fishing, for instance, by Hwang
Ku-ts'ai, but not a single cormorant painting.

Fishing with cormorants is depicted in a Chinese painting
attributed to the Ming period (weak as a painting and teaching but
little about the method of fishing), reproduced in 0. Sir^n, Chinese
Paintings in American Collections, plate 138.

A finger-painting by Kao K'i-p'ei, representing a cormorant
fisher, is in the possession of Mr. Benjamin March, Detroit, to whom
I am indebted for kindly placing at my disposal a photograph of it
here reproduced in Plate XIV. The painting (46 by 22 inches) is on
paper, in black ink on a blue background wash and some tan-orange
in the foreground. It illustrates well the method of solitary fishing
described above (p. 244). The bare-legged fisherman is cautiously
propelling his five-bamboo raft with a long pole, and one of his two
cormorants is spying the water for fish. The picture is inscribed in
grass characters as follows: ^!S^B%tlf-H ^E$t
Htj 3£ 1R Ib Jlfc, i.e. "Finger-play (finger-painting) of Kao K'i-p'ei
of T'ie-ling (in Fung-t'ien fu, Sheng-king, Manchuria, place of
his birth), done on the day before the first full moon of the year
(the Feast of Lanterns) of the year i-se of the K'ang-hi period"
(1665). As the artist died in 1734, he must have been very young
when he sketched this picture; the date of his birth seems to be
unknown. The date 1665, at any rate, is apt to rouse suspicion,
and there may be something wrong about it and the entire legend;
1725, an i-se year, would be more probable, but this falls within the
Yung-cheng period. The year 1665 is separated from 1734 by 69
years; presuming that in 1665 Kao was about 20 years old, he must
have lived to the age of 89; this is not impossible, but it is harder to

251

252 Domestication of the Cormorant

believe that in his youth he should have done this picture which bears
the ear-marks of a work of maturity. Hirth (Scraps, p. 30) remarks
that his best period seems to fall in the years 1700-15. Field
Museum possesses a finger ink-sketch by him, representing two
hawks fluttering around a bare tree-trunk with a date corresponding
to 1685, and another, undated, representing a carp swimming up-
stream and stretching its head out of the water. Both pictures are
reproduced in Laufer, History of the Finger-print System, Smith-
sonian Report for 1912, plates 5 and 6. Kao K'i-p'ei, as is well
known, was a great exponent of the art of finger-painting, and was a
really good artist.

The woodcut inserted in the T'u shu tsi ch'eng (XIX, chap. 45)
shows a single bird perching on a rocky platform and overlooking
the water; the figure is fairly exact, except the beak, the upper
mandible of which is but slightly curved instead of terminating
in a hook. The Pen ts'ao kang mu contains an engraving of a cor-
morant floating downstream with a small fish in its beak.

The San ts'ai t'u hui (1607, sect. Birds and Animals, p. 18)
illustrates a cormorant on the bank of a river, a rather sorry speci-
men. The figure and scene are very similar to the illustration in the
Cheng lei pen ts'ao (above, p. 224).

Good examples of Chinese ink-drawings of cormorant fishing are
reproduced in the book of P. Korrigan (p. 38) and in Gray's
China, II, opp. p. 297.

G. E. Freeman and F. H. Salvin (p. 328) entertained the idea that
"this ingenious method of catching fish was most likely invented by
the Chinese, and must be of very great antiquity, if we may judge by
the representation in old China ware and other Chinese illustrations,"
to which is added in a foot-note, "We have seen cormorant fishing
represented upon some ancient china cups at Leagram Hall, Lanca-
shire, the seat of J. Weld, Esq."

On a white porcelain bowl of the Yung-cheng period (1723-35),
brought from China by Mr. C. T. Yao of New York and presented
to Field Museum by the American Friends of China, Chicago,
various scenes in the occupations of fishermen are represented in
enamel colors, among others a man standing in a boat and carrying
on his shoulders a bamboo pole on which two cormorants perch
(Plate XIII).

The Ku yil t'u p'u (chap. 71, p. 13) illustrates a jade spoon or
ladle terminating in a cormorant's head H 3£ K$ H #?, placed in a
water receptacle in the shape of a tazza; evidently made in allusion

Iconography 253

to the cormorant wine-vessel of Li Po (see Pien tse lei pien,
chap. 210, p. 5, or Ts'e yuan: lu-ts'e). A curious coincidence is
represented by a spoon of the Eastern Dakota Indians, used in the
feasts of the Medicine Lodge, which is provided with a handle carved
to represent a cormorant's head (in Field Museum, Cat. No. 60411).

I do not enumerate the illustrations of cormorant fishing in
China contained in the older European books, as these are reproduced
by Gudger (I) with critical annotations and as in this age of photo-
graphy they have but little scientific value.

The National Geographic Magazine of June, 1927 (p. 704), con-
tains a good reproduction of an excellent photograph of a cormorant
fisher taken by Dr. Camillo Schneider in western Yun-nan.

A photograph of cormorant fishing on the Wei-ho in Shen-si is
reproduced by Clark and Sowerby (plate XX), without description;
it shows a single fisherman standing astride on two small boats
joined together, operating with three birds.

H. Kraemer's "Der Mensch und die Erde" (X, opp. p. 288) con-
tains a colored plate entitled "Fishing with trained cormorants in
China" after a painting by F. de Haenen. A fisherman is shown in the
act of removing a fish from the bill of a cormorant which has just
reached the edge of the boat; three birds are swimming in the water,
and a confused mass of ropes is visible. The picture is rather fan-
tastic than instructive. In the caption accompanying the plate it is
said that the birds dive to a depth of 50 meters (!) and swim under
water for two or three minutes with immense velocity. In the text
which purports to trace the development of fishing all over the world
nothing is said about cormorant fishing.

Yukihide Tosa (fifteenth century) has painted in colors an excel-
lent scene representing cormorant fishing; a man in the boat governs
two birds with strings held in his left hand, closely watching them;
one bird is shown in the act of diving. A color reproduction of this
picture is in Kokka, IV, No. 47, plate 1.

Korin Ogata, who died in 1716, is the creator of a masterly picture
in ink on silk, showing an old fisherman in a boat with torchlight,
eagerly watching his two cormorants in the water; one of the birds
holds an ayu in its beak. The picture belongs to Baron Iwasaki of
Tokyo, and is reproduced in Kokka, XXX, No. 352, 1919, plate VI.
It is said there that the theme was favorite with Korin and that this
work belongs to his best.

Cormorant fishing at night in the Nagara River is illustrated in
a colored print by Yeisen said to be "very rare" (reproduced in

254 Domestication of the Cormorant

Japanese Color Prints of Lindsay Russell, New York, 1920, p. 22).
It is evidently identical with No. 55 of the Sixty-nine Stations of the
Kisokaido by Hiroshige and Yeisen.

A tsuba by Hironaga in Field Museum shows a fisherman with a
lighted torch in the water, holding the ropes attached to a cormorant
whose bill reaches up toward a fish (H. C. Gunsaulus, Japanese
Sword-mounts, plate L, fig. 1).

Pichot's book illustrates seven boats fishing with cormorants in
Lake Gifu, Japan; a lantern made in the same place and painted
with cormorant fishing-boats; the count R. de Najac holding his
cormorant "Pole Nord" or "Careme"; and a French engraving of the
eighteenth century showing falconers and pecheurs au cormoran.

"Fishing with cormorants on the Nagara River, Gifu" is the
subject of an illustration in an article on The Fisheries of Japan by
Jihei Hashiguchi in Far Eastern Review, XIV, 1918, p. 319.

Dr. Gudger's article (II) contains many good reproductions of
fine photographs representing cormorant fishing in Japan, many of
these having been supplied by the Municipal Office of Gifu.

FOLK-LORE OF THE CORMORANT

The Chinese folk-lore of the cormorant is not particularly inter-
esting, but some notions entertained regarding the bird are worthy
of mention. It is an old popular conception first pointed out by the
calligrapher Wang Hi-chi 3E ^ 2. (a.d. 321-379) and by T'ao Hung-
king pSs| %; Jp: (a.d. 452-536) that "this bird is not born from eggs,
but spits its fledglings out of its mouth." Such an absurd idea could,
of course, obtain only at a time when the bird's life was unknown,
and no attempt at training it had been made. Ch'en Ts'ang-k'i,
the physician of the K'ai-yiian period (a.d. 713-741), writes that
"this bird is viviparous ftu ^fe and brings its young forth from its
mouth like the hare vomits its offspring; hence women at the time
of childbirth, when holding this bird, will have an easy delivery."
In the Yu yang tsa tsu (chap. 16, p. 2) it is said, "The hare spits its
young out, the cormorant spits its fledglings out."

The / wu chi of Yang Fu (T'ai p'ing yu Ian, chap. 925, p. 8b),
quoted on p. 221, adds to this superstition that the number of young
born from the mouth is large, at least seven or eight, and that five
or six are connected with one another and come out like a silk thread.
In the Buddhistic dictionary Yi ts'ie king yin i the number of young
ones brought forth from the mouth at one birth is given as eight
or nine.

A parallel to the notion that holding a cormorant will bring
about easy delivery occurs in ancient Japan, where for the same
purpose a cormorant feather was grasped in the hand of a parturient
woman (Aston, Nihongi, I, p. 98).

K'ou Tsung-shi *£ *£ its, in his Pen ts'ao yen i^^ffi w& (chap. 16,
p. 9, ed. of Lu Sin-yuan) written in a.d. 1116, gives the following
account of the cormorant: "T'ao Yin-ku [T'ao Hung-king Pft ^ ^:]
asserts that this bird is not born from eggs, but vomits the fledglings
out of its mouth. The people of the present time call it 'old water-
duck.' The birds nest in large trees where they flock in large num-
bers. The trees in which they lodge for a long time will decay.
Their droppings are poisonous. Pregnant women do not dare
eat this bird on account of the fledglings being vomited out of its
mouth. Ch'en Ts'ang-k'i, on the other hand, states that, in order
to insure an easy childbirth, one should let a woman, when her
hour approaches, hold a bird. While T'ao Siang-hi served as an
official at Li-chou [in Hu-nan], there was a large tree behind the

255

256 Domestication of the Cormorant

house of this gentleman. In the crown of this tree there were thirty
or forty cormorant nests, where at evening the birds could be observed
in the act of mating. Egg-shells of green color were found spread
over the ground. How should this bird then obtain its young by
vomiting them forth from its mouth! Such a thing has never been
verified, and is nothing but baseless talk of the people."

This is one of the rare instances where a superstition is refuted
by actual observation. S. Wells Williams (Chinese Repository, VII,
1839, p. 542), referring to this belief, asserts that "Li Shi-chen very
wisely puts such accounts among errata." Li Shi-chen, however,
does not make any comment on this point; the criticism in question
is solely due to K'ou Tsung-shi.

According to Wang Hi-chi, the ordure of the cormorant is white
and dispels black spots on the face (apparently a skin-disease).
According to the Fang shu jj #, evidently a book of medical pre-
scriptions, cormorant's ordure is called "water-flower of Shu" l|j ?K
#:, it is rubbed into a powder and administered in water; it has the
effect of causing men to renounce wine; the bird's head is a good
remedy for fish-bones sticking in the throat (Ko chi king yuan,
chap. 80, p. 3b) . According to the Pen ts'ao kang mu, the ' 'water-flower
of Shu" is even mentioned in the Pie lu, and T'ao Hung-king com-
ments, "It is plentiful in the valleys with streams; it is necessary
only to get hold of it oneself, as what is offered in the markets cannot
be trusted."

As the cormorant is able to swallow a fish, bone and all, it is
easily understood that in the pharmacopoeia parts of the bird are
recommended as relieving one from fish-bones sticking in the throat.
T'ao Hung-king prescribes for this purpose the bird's bones to be
burnt and mixed with lime and water; this medicine will force fish-
bones down the throat. Fan Wang ^a £E, a physician, at the time
of the Eastern Tsin dynasty (a.d. 317-419) recommends to swallow a
cormorant's beak or to burn a cormorant's wing (prepared in the
same manner as the bones previously) as a remedy against choking
from fish-bones; even an inch square of a cormorant administered
will bring the bone down, if only the bird's name is called out (T'ai
p'ing yu Ian, chap. 925, p. 9). Li Shi-chen extols the bird's crop
which must be swallowed, as very efficient for the same purpose.

Finally the cormorant appears in one story as a rain bird. In
a.d. 797, at the time of a drought, prayers for rain were offered in
the Dragon Hall of the Hing-k'ing Palace JfiJf M f M U & f I fc
when a flock of white cormorants appeared above a pond, grouped
as though conducting the imperial barge; on the following morning

Folk-lore of the Cormorant 257

it rained ( Nan pu sin shu ^i n& $f #, written by Ts'ien Yi H 4*

about a.d. 975, chap. N, p. 2b, ed. of Yiie ya fang ts'ung shu.

The story is told with some greater detail in Kiu Tang shu; see

T'ai p'ing yii Ian, chap. 925, p. 8b, or Yuan kien lei han, chap. 427,

p. 8b).

The description of the cormorants as "white" in the above text

seems somewhat anomalous; perhaps there is confusion with herons.

In England it was regarded as a sign of rain or wind when cormorants

and gulls bathed themselves much, pruned their feathers, nickered

or flapped their wings (J. Brand, Observations on the Popular

Antiquities of Great Britain, III, 1888, p. 218).

Two popular sayings in the Amoy dialect are noted by Francken

and De Grijs (Chineesch-Hollandsch Woordenboek van het Emoi

Dialekt, p. 365, Batavia, 1882):

15 M W. *1 lo tsi k'o am, to have a ring around the neck like

a cormorant; i.e., not to be wholly one's own master.

<& M & £fl H HC Ji lo tsi bu tsai bu ao ts'ao, the cormorant is

not conscious of the odor penetrating from under its tail; i.e., not
to see one's defects.

In England the voracity of the bird was proverbial, and Shake-
speare likens to it a man of large appetite, as "the cormorant belly"
(Coriolanus, 1, 1), "cormorant devouring Time" (Love's Labour's Lost,
I, 1), "this cormorant war" (Troilus and Cressida, II, 2). Compare
T. F. Thiselton Dyer, Folk-lore of Shakespeare, 1884, p. 108. Harting
(Ornithology of Shakespeare, p. 260) writes, "Although Shakespeare
mentions the cormorant in several of his plays, he has nowhere
alluded to the sport of using these birds, when trained, for fishing;
a fact which is singular, since he often speaks of the then popular
pastime of hawking, and he did not die until some years after James I
had made fishing with cormorants a fashionable amusement."
E. Phipson (Animal-lore of Shakespeare's Time, 1883, p. 285) also
writes that Shakespeare's references to the cormorant are only as
an emblem of insatiable appetite.

The scanty information known to the ancients about the
cormorant (if indeed it refers to this genus) has been collected by
0. Keller (Die antike Tierwelt, II, p. 239).

A mythology of the cormorant exists only in ancient Japan (see
above, p. 212) and among the Tlingit and some other Indian tribes
along the northwest coast of America (for references see 0. Dahn-
hardt, Natursagen, 1910, III, pt. 1, pp. 28, 29, 77, 105, 147, 232).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The earlier works on China which make reference to cormorant fishing have
not been included here, as Dr. Gudger (I) has canvassed this ground, nor is men-
tion made of modern works on China which have a casual reference to the subject
without contributing anything new or worth while.

Anon. — Cormorant Fishing. East of Asia Magazine, Shanghai, II, 1903, pp. 95-97.

Brief description inaccurate in several points. 4 ill.
Ball, J. Dyer.— Things Chinese, 4th ed., Shanghai, 1903, pp. 181-183.

Belvallette, Alfred. — Traits de fauconnerie et d'autourserie. Suivi d'une
6tude sur la p§che au cormoran. Paris, 1903.

Brown, Lucy Fletcher. — Fishing with the Birds of Gifu. Japan, XIV, 1925,
pp. 23-24, 31. 3 ill.

Chamberlain, Basil H. — Things Japanese, 5th ed. London, 1905, pp. 105-108.

Cochrane, May L— Harnessed Birds of Gifu. Asia, XXV, 1925, pp. 301-305.

Dabry de Thiersant, P. — La pisciculture et la p§che en Chine. Paris, 1872,
pp. 171-172, plate XIX, fig. 1.

David, Armand, and Oustalet, Emile. — Les oiseaux de la Chine. Paris, 1877,
pp. 532-533.

Brief description of the species.
Doolittle, Justus. — Social Life of the Chinese. London, 1868, pp 36-38. 1 ill.

Fauvel, Albert-Auguste. — Promenades d'un naturaliste dans l'archipel des
Chusan et sur les cotes du Chekiang. Cherbourg, 1880.
Cormorant fishing: pp. 230-233 (valuable observations).
Floericke, K. — Kormoranfischerei. Kosmos, XI, Stuttgart, 1914, pp. 30-33.

Fortune, Robert. — I. Ten Years' Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of
China. 2d ed., London, 1847, 1, pp. 98-103. 3d ed., London, 1853, 1, pp. 86-90.
II. Two Visits to the Tea Countries of China, 3d ed., London, 1853,
I, pp. 86-90.

Freeman, G. E., and Salvin, F. H. — Falconry. Its Claims, History, and Practice.
To which are added Remarks on Training the Otter and Cormorant. London,
1859.

Fishing with Cormorants, pp. 327-349.
Fishing with Otters, pp. 350-352.
Gray, John Henry, Archdeacon. — China, II, pp. 297-298. ill. London, 1878.

Gudger, E. W. — I. Fishing with the Cormorant in China. The American
Naturalist, LX, 1926, pp. 5-41. 16 ill.

II. Fishing with the Cormorant in Japan. The Scientific Monthly,
XXIX.1929, pp. 5-38. 31 ill.

III. Fishing with the Otter. The American Naturalist, LXI, 1927, pp.
193-225. 6 ill.

Hahn, Eduard. — Die Haustiere. Leipzig, 1896, pp. 347-350.

Harting, James E. — Essays on Sport and Natural History. London, 1883,
pp. 423-440: Fishing with Cormorants.

Ikenoya, S. — Cormorant Fishing. Japan Magazine, 1917, pp. 31-32.

Jametel, Maurice. — La Chine inconnue. Paris (Rouam), 1886. Chap. XII:
Le faucon a poisson, son education, pp. 207-213.

Information on the training of the cormorant copied from Fauvel.

258

Bibliography 259

Jordan, David Starr. — Fishing for Japanese Samlets on the Jewel River. Outing,
XL, 1902, pp. 23-25. 1 ill.

Republished in Jordan's Guide to the Study of Fishes, II, New York,
1905, pp. 116-118; and Fishes, New York, 1925, pp. 142-144. 2 ill.

Jouy, P. L. — On Cormorant Fishing in Japan. American Naturalist, XXII,
1888, pp. 1-3.

Korrigan, Pol. — Causerie sur la pfiche fluviale en Chine. Chang-hai, Imprimerie
de la Mission Catholique, 1909.

An excellent booklet. Cormorant, pp. 39-43.

Kuroda, Nagamichi. — Cormorant Fishing on the Nagara River. Japanese

Magazine, Tokyo, XVI, 1926, pp. 303-320. 16 ill.
(Le comte) Le Couteulx de Canteleu. — La p§che au cormoran. Paris, Revue

britannique, 1870.

He was the owner of a flock of cormorants at his castle Saint-Martin.

Leonhardt, E. — Aus China. Deutsche Fischerei Correspondenz, V, 1901, June,
p. 7; July, p. 3.

A few data on the training of the cormorant in China.

Pichot, Pierre-Amedee. — Les oiseaux de sport. Paris (A. Legoupy), 1903.

Cormorant: pp. 27-35; chiefly with reference to France and Japan.

Rupprecht Prinz von Bayern. — Reise-Erinnerungen aus Ost-Asien. Munchen,
1906.

Cormorant fishing in Tamagawa west of Tokyo, pp. 322-323.

Schmidt, M. — Fortpflanzung des gemeinen Cormorans in Gefangenschaft. Der
Zoologische Garten, XI, 1870, pp. 12-18.

Interesting data on the nesting habits and breeding of the cormorants.

Seebohm, Henry. — On the Cormorants of Japan and China. Ibis, 5th series, V,
1885, pp. 270-271.

Ornithological classification and description.

Smith, Hugh M. — I. Japan, the Paramount Fishing Nation. Transactions
American Fisheries Society, 33rd meeting, 1904, pp. 129-132. 4 ill.

II. The Fisheries of Japan. National Geographic Magazine, Wash-
ington, XVI, 1905, pp. 213-214. 3 ill.

Sokolowsky, Alexander. — Der Kormoran in seinen Beziehungen zur mensch-
lichen Wirtschaft. Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, Zeitschrift fur allgemeine
und spezielle Weltwirtschaftslehre, Jena, XII, 1918, pp. 315-320.
With a short bibliography.

Sourbets, G., and Saint-Marc, C. de. — Precis de fauconnerie, suivi de l'dduca-
tion du cormoran. Niort, Clouzot, 1887.

Sowerby, Alfred de C— The Cormorant in China. China Journal of Science
and Arts, IV, 1926, pp. 72-74. 4 ill.

Special Catalogue of the Ningpo Collection of Exhibits. International Fishery
Exhibition, Berlin, 1880. Also in Ibis, IV, 1880, pp. 375-376; and Special
Catalogue of the Chinese Collection in Great International Fisheries Exhibi-
tion, London, 1883.

Information on cormorant by A. A. Fauvel.

Stone, Jabez K.— Cormorant Fishing at Gifu. Japan, VIII, 1919, pp. 5-7, 44.
5 ill.

Williams, S. Wells. — Notices in Natural History: the Loo-sze or Fishing
Cormorant. Chinese Repository, VII, 1839, Canton, pp. 541-543.
Very incomplete translation of the text of the Pen ts'ao.

INDEX

An-hui, cormorant fishing in, 221, 222,

228
Aston, 212, 213, 255
ayu, 213, 231, 248, 253

Buddhists, attitude of toward cormo-
rant fishing, 225

Chamberlain, 221

Ch'ang-t'ing hien chi, 209

Che-kiang, cormorant fishing in, 227,
242

Ch'en Hao-tse, 223, 250

Ch'en Ts'ang-k'i, 224, 225, 255

Cheng lei pen ts'ao, 224, 225, 252

Chi-li, cormorant fishing in, 230, 237

Cocks, 213

cormorant, Chinese terminology of, 208;
folk-lore of, 255 ; geographical distribu-
tion of, 207, 227; iconography of, 251;
Japanese terminology of, 211; process
of domestication of, 236

Cormorant Cliff, 210

Cormorant Embankment, 210

Cormorant Islet, 210

Cormorant Lake, 210

Dabry de Thiersant, 238, 246, 258
De Guignes, 228, 243
Doolittle, 228
duet fishing, 244

eels, preferred by cormorants to other

fish, 238
eggs, of cormorant, 237
egrets, tamed and kept in captivity,

249-250
England, cormorant fishing in, 206, 207
Er ya, 208, 214, 225
Er ya i, 217, 223, 225
Europe, cormorant fishing in, 206

falconry, cormorant fishing compared

with, 218, 229
Fan Chen, 218
Fan Wang, 256
Fang I-chi, 214, 219, 239
Fang shu, 256

Fauvel, 210, 227, 238, 241, 246, 258
fishermen's gild, 244
Florenz, 212
Fortune, 206, 227, 229, 238, 240, 241,

258
France, cormorant fishing in, 206
Fu-kien, cormorant fishing in, 227-228

Giles, 208, 209, 220, 221
group fishing, 244, 245
Gudger, 205, 213, 230, 232, 237, 249,
253, 254, 258

Hahn, 236, 258

Hai-hou Tsie, 216

harness method of cormorant fishing in

Japan, 234, 247
Halting, 206, 207, 229, 236, 257, 258
Hemeling, 211
Hing-hua fu chi, 208, 227
Hironaga, 254
Hiroshige, 254

Holland, cormorant fishing in, 206, 207
Ho-nan, cormorant fishing in, 228
Hu-nan, cormorant fishing in, 228; other

fishing in, 249
Hu-nan fang wu chi, 228, 235, 237
Hu Tse, 215
Httan Ying, 208
Hui Hung, 215
Hwa king, 223, 250
Hwang Ch'ao-ying, 218, 219
Hwang Kii-ts'ai, 251

I wu chi, 221, 255
Ikenoya, 213, 246, 258
Indo-China, cormorant fishing absent
in, 235

James I, fishing with cormorants, 206,

257
Jametel, 246, 258
Japan, cormorant training and fishing

in, 212, 213, 231, 246-248

Kao K'i-p'ei, 251, 252

Kiang-si, cormorant fishing in, 228

K'in king, 221

Kojiki, 212

Korea, cormorant fishing absent in, 235

Korin Ogata, 253

Korrigan, 228, 244, 252, 259

K'ou Tsung-shi, 255, 256

Ku yu t'u p'u, 252

Kuroda, 213, 246, 259

Kwang-tung, cormorant fishing in, 228,

243
Kwei-chou, cormorant fishing in, 229
K'wei-chou fu chi, 219
K'wei-chou t'u king, 217
K'wei ku chi, 219
Kwo T'wan, 219

Lan chen tse, 215

260

Index

261

Lao-wa Tan, 229

Leng chai ye hwa, 215, 217, 219

Li Po, 221, 253

Li Shi-chen, 208, 224, 225, 256

Liu K'o, 217

Liu Yii-si, 215

Lo Yuan, 217, 223

Lu Ki, 221, 249

Lu nung shi, 215

Lu Tien, 250

Ma-kia-hiang t'ing chi, 242

Ma Twan-lin, 232, 233

Ma Yung-k'ing, 214, 215

Magnus, Olaus, 207

Man sou shi hwa, 216

ManySshu, 213

Mao shi ts'ao mu niao shou ch'ung yii

su, 221, 249
March, Benjamin, 251
Mendoza, 241
Milton, 209

Mollendorff, 209, 215, 217
Mong k'i pi fan, 215, 217
Mong liang lu, 208

Nachod, 221

Nan Man ch'wan, 215, 216

Nan pu sin shu, 257

Neng kai chai man lu, 215, 219

Newton 209

Nieuhoff, 210, 230, 237, 241, 242

Nihongi, 212

Ning-hua hien chi, 216, 239, 241, 242

Odoric, 205, 241, 243
ordure of cormorant, as a remedy, 224,
256; considered poisonous, 225, 255
otter fishing, 249

Palladius, 209, 220

Parker, 210, 229, 233

pelican, 211

Pelliot, 208

Pen ts'ao kang mu, 208, 224, 252

Pen ts'ao kang mu shi i, 239, 252, 256

Pen ts'ao shi i, 224, 255

Pen ts'ao yen i, 209, 255

Pi ki, 249

P'i ya, 215, 250

Pichot, 206, 207, 236, 247, 254, 259

Pie lu, 256

pig, sacred, 216

raft, for cormorant fishing, 244

raven, worshipped as a demon in Se-
ch'wan, 216, 219

Reinhardt, 233, 236

ring around cormorant's neck, signi-
ficance of, 241, 242

Ripa, 228

Salvin, 206, 207, 252
San ts'ai t'u hui, 252

Se-ch'wan, cormorant fishing in, 218,

230, 231, 243
Se-ch'wan t'ung chi, 218, 219
Shakespeare, 257

Shan-tung, cormorant fishing in, 230
Shao-hing fu chi, 227, 250
Shao Po-wen, 220
Shen Kwa, 215, 217, 219
Shen-si, cormorant fishing in, 230, 253
Siang su tsa ki, 215, 218
Sin siu pen ts'ao, 224
Siren, 251

solitary fishing, 244, 249
Sowerby, 230, 237, 238, 248, 253, 259
Staunton, 242
sturgeon, 214
Su Fang, 225
Su po wu chi, 214
Su Shi, 250
Slian ho hwa p'u, 251
Sui shu, 212, 219, 232
Sung K'i, 249

Ta Ming i t'ung chi, 209

T'ai p'ing yii Ian, 212, 250, 255, 256,

257
Tan-t'u hien chi, 209
T'an Ts'ui, 229
Tang-t'u, 221, 222
T'ao Hung-king, 255, 256
T'ao Ku, 221
team method of cormorant fishing in

Japan, 234, 247
Tien hai yii heng chi, 229
Ting-hai t'ing chi, 227
Ts'ai Kwan-fu, 215
Ts'ai shi shi hwa, 215
Ts'ang kie p'ien, 208
Ts'e-k'i hien chi, 227
Ts'e yuan, defects of, 223
Ts'ing i lu, 209, 212, 214, 221, 245
Tsing k'ang siang su tsa ki, 218
Ts'ing-t'ien hien chi, 227
Tu Fu, 209, 214, 215, 217, 218
T'u shu tsi ch'eng, 212, 222, 225, 252
Tung chai ki shi, 218
T'ung ya, 214, 216, 217

Wang Hi-chi, 255, 256

Wang Mou, 215, 218, 219

Wang Wei, 221

Wen hien t'ung k'ao, 232

Wen kien lu, 220

Wieger, 226

Willes, 241, 245

Williams, 208, 214, 256, 259

Wu-ho, reputed for breeding cormorants,

228
wu kwei, discussion of term, 214-221
Wu lei siang kan chi, 250
Wu li siao shi, 239
Wu Tseng, 219

262 Domestication of the Cormorant

Yang Fu, 221, 255 Yuan kien lei han, 257

Yang Shen, 217 Yukihide Tosa, 253

Ye ko ts'ung shu, 215 Yule, 206

Yeisen, 253 Yiin-nan, cormorant fishing in, 229, 253

Yi ts'ie king yin i, 208, 255 Yung-ch'un chou chi, 242

Yu yang tsa tsu, 215, 255

Yii yin ts'ung hwa, 215 Zach, 221

Yuan Chen, 216, 219, 221

THE LIBRARY CF THE
OCT 8 - 1931

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

SS3

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THE LIBRARY

OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

Field Museum of Natural History

Anthropology, Vol. XVIII, Plate XIV

CORMORANT FISHER, FINGER-PAINTING
BY KAO K'1-P'EI

THE UBMW
Of ^E
«*E0U 0F llL1H01S

Field Museum of Natural History

Anthropology, Vol. XVIII, Plate XV

FISHERMAN ON BAMBOO RAFT WITH CORMORANTS

FISHING WITH CORMORANTS ON BAMBOO RAFT

CORMORANTS PERCHING ON BAMBOO RAFT
Photographs taken by Floyd Tangier Smith on Min River near Fuchow,
Fu-kien Province

THE LIBRARY

OF ME

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

Field Museum of Natural History

Anthropology, Vol. XVIII, Plate XVI

FISHERMAN HOLDING CORMORANT

PLACING THE CATCH IN A BASKET

FEEDING THE CORMORANT AFTER THE CATCH

Photographs taken by Floyd Tangier Smith on Min River near Fuchow,

Fu-kien Province